


Knight Magic: The Hogwarts Project

by suitesamba



Series: Knight Magic [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Johnlock, Gen, Humor, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Nostalgia, Potterlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 19:47:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A multi-chapter sequel to "Knight Magic." Years ago, both John and Sherlock walked away from the Wizarding World - John by voluntarily leaving after the War ended, and Sherlock by deleting his magical life after failing to reconcile science and magic.  Not-so-coincidentally (the universe is rarely so lazy), they found each other in the Muggle World, neither knowing the other was a wizard. Then, a bit more than a year ago, Sherlock, standing over an injured John, inadvertently summoned the Knight Bus and their hidden and forgotten pasts came crashing back with all the noise and confusion a triple-decker purple bus can bring.</p><p>Now, Mycroft - the Muggle Ministry's Magical liaison - comes to John and Sherlock with a request. The daughter of one of the Ministers has just received a Hogwarts letter. The Minister would like a thorough safety, security and curriculum check of Hogwarts. Even though John (a Hogwarts alum) grapples with the idea of Hogwarts being able to pass any such test, they accept the job and prepare to immerse themselves in the most magical place in Great Britain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mycroft Takes His Tea Cold

**Author's Note:**

> And it's another magical adventure for John and Sherlock, this one taking place at Hogwarts. I have deep roots in the Harry Potter fandom, having written quite a bit of HP fic, mainly Snape-centric works. Bringing these two worlds together is a lot of fun, and after writing Knight Magic a couple months ago, I decided that Sherlock needed time to get adjusted to having magic again, and then he needed to go to Hogwarts (he's a Beauxbatons boy in this world).
> 
> I'm trying for a 3rd person omniscient POV in this story - something I don't do often, and probably not well, but it seemed to lend itself better to this story line.
> 
> This story will be updated at least weekly, and probably more frequently.

“God _damn_ it Mycroft! Would you stop _doing_ that!”

“I was an Auror, Mycroft,” John called out from the kitchen. “I know how to put up anti-Apparition wards.”

“Of course you do, John,” said Mycroft pleasantly. He had, in fact, just Apparated directly into the sitting room of 221B. Directly between John and Sherlock’s chairs, in fact. And as Sherlock’s chair was occupied by a so-not-a-morning person, tea-drinking, dressing-gown wearing Sherlock, Mycroft settled instead into John’s chair, crossed his legs, and waited patiently until John appeared, already showered and dressed, and pressed a mug of tea into his hands. “It’s far more convenient popping in on you now that you’re at least hovering on the fringes of the magical world.” He took a sip of his tea and frowned at it, then gave Sherlock a disapproving look, focusing on Sherlock’s hand in the pocket of his dressing gown.

“You’re such a child, Sherlock. You know I’ll just warm it back up again.”

“He must have been a menace when he was younger.” John settled on the arm of Sherlock’s chair and looked over at Mycroft. “I might have served your tea cold, you know.”

Mycroft dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “He’s still a menace,” he said, though his voice was a touch fond. He shook his head and tsked. “Such a waste. All that innate magical ability and he uses it to play practical jokes.”

“And to summon things,” said John. “He’s really talented with an _Accio_.”

Sherlock had brightened a bit when John’s warmth had settled next to him, and brightened even more at the praise. “It wasn’t a practical joke,” he said. “I was trying to get you to leave.”

Mycroft scowled at him.

“And it’s not a waste,” Sherlock continued, rather imperiously. “Magic has improved our sex life, if you must know, though honestly, there was nothing wrong with it _before_ I learned to conjure lube and perform a body-part specific _Petrificus._ ”

“Thank you for that delightful mental image.” With the air of one who had, in the past, been subjected to one too many cooling charm, he flicked his wand at his tea. Steam immediately rose from it, and he took a sip and nodded at John. “Excellent, as usual. Thank you, John.”

His praise of John’s tea-making ability did not go unnoticed by Sherlock, who took a sip from his own cup and said, deceptively casually, “John does make the best tea. Who makes your morning tea, Mycroft, hmm?” 

“Behave,” said John, but his heart wasn’t in it. John liked Mycroft more than he’d admit, but he also enjoyed Sherlock flaunting their relationship at Mycroft. It meant something to him to see Sherlock so comfortable in it, so at ease. “You’re not here just for my tea, Mycroft,” he said. He raised an eyebrow and Mycroft sighed.

“No, I’m not. We have a bit of a problem at the Ministry – and I have come to request your services.” He chose his words with care. He would have preferred to say “demand your services” or, truth be told, “I’ve already signed you up to fix the bloody thing.” But as it was a magical mission, he decided to tread more carefully.

“I’m retired,” Sherlock said. He faked a yawn. 

Mycroft rubbed his forehead. He looked like he was beginning to run out of patience. “Fine, Sherlock. You’re retired. John, you can help me then.”

“I don’t work alone, Mycroft,” answered John. He elbowed Sherlock in the shoulder. “And since when are you retired?”

“Just hear me out – please.” Mycroft paused, and John nodded while Sherlock tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “The Minister of State for Schools has an eleven-year old daughter…” 

John erupted in laughter. “Oh, I think I know where this is going,” he said.

Sherlock frowned. “Dull,” he said. Ignoring John, and still staring at the ceiling, he continued. “Bullying at school? No? Kidnapping threat, then? Ah – the child has already been kidnapped?”

He couldn’t see John’s grin. Mycroft sipped his tea, waiting patiently for Sherlock to finish.

“Someone got a letter, I take it?” John asked.

“A letter? Ransom demand?” Sherlock scooted his hips back a few inches in the chair and tilted his chin down just enough to see Mycroft.

Mycroft tucked two fingers in the breast pocket of his suit and extracted a letter that was much too big to have fit there. He held it out to John, but Sherlock’s hand darted out to grab it. John and Mycroft exchanged an amused look as Sherlock read.

“I was right," John said, eying the distinctive parchment and the green handwriting. “It’s a Hogwarts letter. The Minister’s daughter is a witch.” 

“The Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts has already visited the family,” Mycroft explained. “On one hand, they are almost relieved – apparently, it was becoming difficult to rationalize some of the girl’s accidental magic. On the other – well, you can imagine, I’m sure.” He gave John a significant look. 

Sherlock was holding the letter up, studying it in the sunlight. He shook it, frowned, turned it over, and shook it again, perhaps expecting magical multi-coloured sparks to shoot out of it.

“This is it? This is all they receive?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Mycroft, with a sigh that conveyed his opinion of the matter. “Most children have been anticipating receiving their Hogwarts letter for years. Muggle-born children, however, do get a follow-up visit from a Hogwarts staff member. “

“But you’re the Muggle-Magical liaison,” John said. He’d made out the name on the letter. _Eloise Benton._ “Didn’t you know the Minister’s daughter was going to get a letter?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Mycroft said, frowning. He was, apparently, displeased with this particular facet of the Hogwarts policy as well. “No one knows. Well, no one save the Headmaster or Headmistress, who is the keeper of the Book of Magical Births, and his or her appointed Deputy. When this particular letter arrived….”

“The Book of Magical Births?” Sherlock looked up at Mycroft, obviously curious. 

“The births of all magical children born in Great Britain are recorded in a book – magically,” explained Mycroft. “It is old magic, created by the founders of Hogwarts themselves.”

“How was it sent?” asked Sherlock. He was smoothing out the letter on his knee now. “Did you keep the envelope?”

Mycroft produced the envelope from the same pocket. Sherlock took it and smelled the glue.

“Mine came in the post,” John said, watching Sherlock examine the wax seal. “It was in a thick parchment envelope just like that, with green handwriting, and regular Muggle stamps.”

“All letters to Muggle-born first-years are sent by Muggle post,” Mycroft answered. “Children with magical families receive their letter by owl post, but the letters themselves are exactly the same.”

“Well how did _you_ get it, then?” continued Sherlock. He was obviously a bit out of his element when it came to Hogwarts business. “How did this particular letter make its way up to you?”

“My name was given to the Minister by the Hogwarts Deputy Headmaster when he visited,” Mycroft answered. He sighed and pinched his forehead again with thumb and forefinger. “I always wondered when something like this would happen.” He somehow managed to look both put-out and pleased. “Thank God it’s not a royal.”

“Mycroft, what do you want from me?” asked Sherlock. “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. I wouldn’t even be out of bed yet if John hadn’t woken me with the most magnificent blow job.”

John elbowed Sherlock in the side of the head. “Behave!”

“Tea making isn’t his only skill,” Sherlock added, looking properly smug.

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “John’s most valuable skill is handling you, brother mine.” He reached across and picked up the Hogwarts letter from Sherlock’s leg and pocketed it. “I’ve already told you that I’m in need of your services. The Minister in question has enlisted my aid. He’s demanding a report on the Hogwarts curriculum, an on-site assessment of safety and security, and interviews and background checks of faculty and staff. Naturally, we can’t send our regular agents….”

“Naturally,” said Sherlock. He cocked his head, staring at Mycroft who was, in turn, staring at John. Oddly, the brothers had identical expressions.

“Yes, John? What, pray tell, is so amusing?”

“They want a safety assessment at Hogwarts? A _safety_ assessment?” Sherlock gave his brother a disapproving look, as if he was right on board with John and not just as much in the cold as Mycroft was. 

“Yes. As I said. Safety and security. Plus a curriculum assessment and background checks on the professors… What? What now?” 

“You do realize that the History of Magic professor is a _ghost_?”

“John – really. This isn’t a joke, as much as it seems to amuse you. I’ve already arranged everything with the Board of Governors. You’ll be leaving from Platform 9 ¾ on Monday morning.”

“Plat…” John sputtered to a stop. He glanced at Sherlock, who was obviously intrigued and no longer bothering to hide it. “You’ve arranged to take us to Hogwarts on the _Hogwarts Express?_ ”

“Naturally. You’ll need to assess the security at King’s Cross, on the train itself, and at Hogsmeade Station.” He smiled, and John wondered if Mycroft himself had ever been to Hogwarts. “The Minister wants every assurance that his daughter will be completely safe from the moment she enters the Wizarding world on Platform 9 ¾.”

John looked down at Sherlock again. Sherlock was staring at Mycroft, hands steepled in front of his face.

“What’s in it for me?” Sherlock asked suspiciously.

“Knowledge,” answered Mycroft immediately. “The freedom to explore Hogwarts nearly unencumbered. Access to one of the most magical places in Britain, including its extensive library.”

“Mycroft – do you _really_ think it’s wise to introduce Sherlock to Hogwarts?” interrupted John. “Sherlock? Your brother?”

“Excuse me, but I am here, you realize.” Sherlock stood and John slid down into the chair he’d vacated, just managing to keep his tea from slopping over the sides of the cup.

“Oh, I realize,” replied Mycroft. He promptly turned to John. “And I also understand your reluctance to reengage with the Wizarding world. But this is a single case, and Hogwarts is really quite isolated. You’ll be on-site for less than a week, and the students won’t arrive until September 1st. It will be you and the faculty and staff – no Ministry officials, no –”

“No Aurors?” asked John. 

Mycroft made a face.

“The Hogwarts Board of Governors has requested that one Auror be present in the castle while you are on site,” he admitted. “One.”

“They can send Potter.” Sherlock spoke with authority, from his position by the window. He was holding the curtain back, looking out at the street, appearing to pay no attention to Mycroft and John.

“I hardly think they’ll send the head of the MLE,” laughed Mycroft. 

“Why not?” Sherlock countered. He turned and faced Mycroft again. “We’re sending _our_ best.”

John’s mouth twisted as he fought back a grin.

“Sherlock – do you want to do this?” he asked. “Because now is the time to say no if you’ve any reservations at all.”

“I’ve had more than a year already, John,” Sherlock replied. He gave John the smallest of smiles, but it told John that Sherlock, for his part, believed there was nothing to fear. Sherlock was not the same man he’d been at twenty, unable to reconcile Magic and science, so torn up inside that he’d considered taking his own life rather than being driven mad by the irreconcilable worlds, and ultimately deciding to delete all knowledge of magic and the magical world. “But do _you_ want to?”

John Watson had left the Wizarding World for far different reasons than Sherlock had and, unlike Sherlock, had retained all the memories of his magical past. He’d buried them, put his wand in safe-keeping, and had walked away as soon as he was convinced that Voldemort was truly dead. John’s Muggle parents had been tortured and killed by Death Eaters. There was simply no joy left in magic, no joy in his life at all when the young Auror had enrolled in Uni then, fresh from med school, enlisted in the Army.

“I’ve had more than a year already, Sherlock,” John echoed. “And if you’re in, I’m in. There’s absolutely no chance I’d stay here and miss your first time at Hogwarts.”

“I’ll e-mail the documentation tonight,” Mycroft said, all businesslike now that he’d secured his goal. “Be sure to print it and take it with you – your electronic devices….”

“Yes, we know. Won’t work well around magic.” Sherlock walked back to his chair and stared down at John expectantly. John refused to move. He turned back to Mycroft. “And what is this documentation?”

“Your travel itinerary, checklists, screening questions for the faculty, security parameters, curriculum evaluation forms, a grading system….”

“Excellent.” He cut off his brother and walked to the door and opened it. “Goodbye, Mycroft.”

“I’ll meet you at King’s Cross myself on Monday,” Mycroft said.

“Mycroft,” said Sherlock, looking from his brother to the door.

Mycroft sighed and stood. “Still thinking like a Muggle, Sherlock,” he said as he Disapparated.

Sherlock pushed the door closed. “I knew he’d do that,” he said. He waited five seconds to make sure Mycroft wasn’t coming back, then spun on the spot and clapped his hands.

“Had a hard time keeping that in, did you?” asked John, smiling.

“We’ll have carte blanche,” Sherlock said. “Run of the castle.”

“You did hear him mention the Auror, didn’t you?” asked John. 

Sherlock brushed him off. “I can take on all of Scotland Yard, John. Surely I can handle one Auror.”

“The detectives here don’t have wands,” John pointed out.

Sherlock ignored him. “There’s a lake. We should bring swimwear.”

“Swimwear? Are you mad? You can’t swim in the lake – there are merpeople, and grindylows – and a giant squid.”

“Exactly.” Sherlock had his back to John now. He was standing in front of the bookshelves, quickly sorting through John’s old Hogwarts textbooks. He pulled out his O.W.L. level “Care of Magical Creatures” text and whirled around. “And we’ll need a tent. Do you own one?”

“A tent? Do I own a tent? Have you _seen_ a tent in the flat, Sherlock?”

Sherlock was working the shelves again. He pulled out another book and stacked it atop the first.

“We’ll have an entire castle at our disposal,” John said, clearly frustrated. “ A castle with hundreds of very comfortable four-poster beds. We won’t need a tent.”

“I recall reading about a Forbidden Forest.” Sherlock strode past John into the kitchen. “Anything with the word ‘Forbidden’ in its title will naturally attract children.”

“Wait – you want to camp in the Forbidden Forest?” John got to his feet and followed Sherlock into the kitchen. “Sherlock – we need to talk. I don’t think you understand about Hogwarts. About what Mycroft is asking.” He hurried after Sherlock, who was now heading to their bedroom. “And I don’t have a tent!” he shouted after him. “Why would I have a tent? Have you actually ever seen me camping? Heard me talk about it? Like – ‘Sherlock, do you mind if Greg and I take off this weekend for a bit of camping?’”

Sherlock was sorting through clothes in the cupboard. He turned and stared at John.

“Greg?”

“Lestrade.” John sighed and dropped onto the bed. “You really should learn your friends’ first names, Sherlock.”

“You’d go camping with Lestrade? Does he like to camp? Does he have a tent?

“I have no idea. No. No, he doesn’t. I’d know if he likes to camp, wouldn’t I? Because he’s my friend.” He watched Sherlock, who had lost all interest in Lestrade after discovering that he would not be providing them a tent, return to sorting through clothes. “Sherlock, sit down. Please. We really need to talk. You can pack tomorrow.”

Sherlock closed the cupboard door. From his attitude, one would have thought John has asked him to donate a kidney to Moriarty. He flopped down on the bed dramatically.

“I’m listening – talk.”

“Alright.” John pulled his feet onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard. “I don’t know what Mycroft’s game is, Sherlock, because he should know this too. Number one – Hogwarts is not a safe place. At all.”

“But Hogwarts is a school,” protested Sherlock. John knew what he meant. Schools were full of children. A great deal of effort was made in the Muggle world to make schools as safe as humanly possible.

“Right – but it’s different in the Wizarding world. First, you need to understand that a child’s magic will protect them – not from everything, of course, but especially from accidents and attacks. There’s a well-documented case of a boy bouncing when he fell out of a window. But it’s other things, too. Like suddenly finding yourself safe inside your house when you’re being chased by the neighborhood bully.”

Sherlock pursed his lips. “You?” He didn’t approve of John being pursued by bullies.

“No, you berk. I’m not talking about me.” John took Sherlock’s hand and laced their fingers together. “I might have been smaller than the other kids, but I learned to hold my own. And there’s another thing – magical families don’t usually have a lot of children. One or two, mostly, and they’re very protective. They just trust magic – and maybe fate – more than Muggles would.”

“Alright. I accept that magical children are different – not as likely to crush their skulls when they fall headfirst out a window.”

John nudged Sherlock. “ _You_ survived your childhood. You were probably blowing things up all the time.”

“I did wonder about that,” admitted Sherlock. “Mycroft said I was extremely lucky – that I had nine lives.”

“You’d need them at Hogwarts,” John continued. “It has one hundred and forty-two staircases, and some of them move. Not like escalators. They actually move from one landing to another. Sometimes with students on them. The lake is chock full of dangerous creatures. The Forbidden Forest – well, there’s a reason it’s Forbidden. Students use poisons in Potions – even first-years. There are dueling clubs. Painful jinxes and curses. The school sport is Quidditch – kids are on brooms a hundred feet off the ground with Bludgers chasing after them trying to knock them off their brooms. Even the plants can seriously harm you. And those things are just the tip of the iceberg, Sherlock. Hogwarts will never – ever – pass a safety inspection.”

As John expected, Sherlock looked more intrigued than ever – almost fascinated, in fact.

“Well then – what about security? You mentioned wards to Mycroft. Surely the castle is well-protected from outside attack?”

John frowned. “It’s complicated. But yes, from a security perspective, the outlook is a little better. There are wards that keep Muggles away. But a wizard who wants to get in – or out – will always find a way. That’s the thing – they have magic at their disposal. During the war, even before the Dark Lord took control of the Ministry, Death Eaters got in. They had help from inside – from some of the older students whose parents were on the Dark Lord’s side – but they’d have found a way no matter what.”

“You’ve been away for quite a while, John,” Sherlock said after some consideration. “It’s quite possible things have changed at Hogwarts.”

John smiled, almost nostalgically. “I suppose they may have, but I doubt it. Hogwarts has been around for more than a thousand years. Change is slow there. And good luck with the curriculum. Maths aren’t taught, you know. No literature, world history, physical education, writing, foreign languages. Well – you’ve seen my textbooks, Sherlock. They study Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ancient Runes, Astronomy, Herbology, Charms and Transfiguration and Potions.”

“The children must love it.”

“They do,” John admitted. He had an odd look on his face, as if he could see through the wall in front of him right into his old school. He squeezed Sherlock’s hand. “They do.”


	2. You Don't Need a Ticket to Board the Hogwarts Express

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft meets Sherlock and John on Platform 9 3/4 and, with the Auror appointed by Harry Potter to assist with their investigation, they begin their safety assessment with the Hogwarts Express.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a little fun with Ron here. The idea of Ron Weasley and Sherlock sharing the same space just made me giggle.

Chapter 2

Months before, John had, on a whim, taken Sherlock to Platform 9 ¾ and then on to Diagon Alley to meet Ollivander the wand maker. Mycroft, however, had no idea that this was not Sherlock’s maiden voyage. This worked out well for the purposes of Sherlock and John’s entertainment. True, they hadn’t actually gone anywhere that first time – just visited the station on a quiet day when they had time to fill while waiting for their train – but at least Sherlock was more accepting this time that he’d have to take a deliberate run at a brick wall.

The station was relatively quiet after the morning rush, and they found Mycroft waiting for them, fiddling with his mobile and leaning on his umbrella. He pocketed the mobile as soon as he saw them, and indicated the barrier with a slight twist of his neck.

“This?” Sherlock protested. 

John played along. “It’s supposed to look like nothing, Sherlock. Just wait until no one is around and push on through.”

“Push on through?” Sherlock glared at Mycroft instead of John. 

“You can summon all manner of sordid things from that kitchen of yours,” Mycroft hissed. “Please tell me how _that_ is any more likely than walking through a brick wall.”

“After you, then,” Sherlock said. “I’ll see how the expert does it and be right along behind you.”

“I’m hardly an expert, Sherlock. You do remember I didn’t actually attend Hogwarts, don’t you?”

“You’ve never?” John asked, trying to look nonchalant as a young couple, holding hands, passed by.

“No.” Mycroft’s gaze followed the couple until they turned a corner. 

“Straight on through. Just walk at it and pretend it’s not there. Close your eyes if it helps. You’ll be on the other side in no time.”

“All clear,” said Sherlock. He took his brother by the shoulders and attempted to walk him at the barrier.

“Off!” Mycroft shook free, glared at Sherlock, and smoothed out his suit with his hand. 

“You two,” said John, shaking his head. He found himself doing even more head shaking than usual these days. “I am so glad you went to Beauxbatons, Mycroft. You’d have been Head Boy at Hogwarts and we’d all have hated you. Now wait there.”

He rounded up a luggage cart, and wheeled it up to Mycroft.

“We used to just run at the barrier with our loaded carts,” he explained.

They watched as Mycroft backed up, looked both directions, then ran at and through the barrier.

“That was anticlimactic,” said John.

“And definitely undignified,” said Sherlock, still looking at the spot where Mycroft had disappeared. He shook his head. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Mycroft run before.”

John grabbed his arm and headed to and through the barrier. Mycroft wasn’t waiting for them on the other side. He was striding down the platform toward the engine at the far end, completely ignoring the oddly archaic passenger cars. Halfway down the platform, he paused and looked back to make sure they were following him.

“Hurry, they’re waiting for us.” He indicated two red-robed Aurors a few carriages ahead, standing side by side. “You did bring the documents I sent?”

“John has them,” Sherlock answered. He made no move to follow Mycroft, however. Instead, he walked slowly to the centre of the platform and looked from one end to the other, eyes darting everywhere as he studied the train.

“You realise you didn’t give me the documents, don’t you?” John stood beside him now, looking at the train with the same sense of nostalgia he’d had when he and Sherlock had visited the platform all those months ago.

Sherlock glanced at him. “Of course. I didn’t even print the file.”

“Well, so much for going by the book.” John smothered a smile and Sherlock narrowed his eyes and began to count the carriages. 

But John couldn’t keep the smile off his face. September first had been his favorite day of the year back in the day. Nothing could compare to hauling his trunk through King’s Cross Station, rushing through the barrier, being surrounded by magic after a perfectly normal Muggle summer.

“How many students are at Hogwarts?” Sherlock asked.

“Oh – I don’t know. Several hundred,” answered John. “It varies, of course, but there were about eighty in my house, I think, and no more than fifty in my form.”

“The train will hold three hundred and fifty comfortably. How many students don’t take the train?”

“Don’t take the train?” 

“Sherlock! John!”

“Everyone takes the train.”

“Are you certain?”

“Sherlock!”

“Mustn’t keep the Queen waiting,” said Sherlock, not quite under his breath. He took John by the elbow and propelled him forward, as if John had been the hold up and not Sherlock.

“Sherlock, John.” Mycroft stood near the engine, nearly bristling with pleasure. He was flanked by both the Aurors. The first was easily recognizable by all as Harry Potter. The second was taller than Potter, red-haired and freckled. 

“You’ve already met Harry Potter, of course,” Mycroft said.

“Yes, of course.” Sherlock offered his hand and John followed suit. Potter, in turn, introduced his companion.

“And this is Ron Weasley. I’ve assigned him to the security detail with you.” At the look on Sherlock’s face, he grinned. “Don’t worry – he won’t get in your way.

Sherlock shook Weasley’s hand, quickly assessing the man and determining that no matter how competent an Auror he was, on this job he’d spend more time reacquainting himself with the Hogwarts kitchens and reminiscing with the professors than following them around the castle. 

For his part, Weasley was more or less ignoring Sherlock altogether, which did not go unnoticed by Sherlock. He was shaking John’s hand now, and John was grinning broadly at him.

“You’ve grown up a bit since I saw you last, Ron.”

“I don’t know,” Weasley answered. “I felt pretty grown up that last time, all things considered.”

John sobered. “My apologies – I wasn’t actually thinking of the Final Battle – ”

Weasley smiled. “No worries. Rather hard to remember who was where in all that chaos. You mean at the Burrow – don’t you? Summer holidays before I even started at Hogwarts.” 

“That’s it. Pick up Quidditch and your mum’s cooking. I could have stayed there forever. How’re Charlie and the twins doing?” John asked.

Ron gave John an odd look. “Charlie and George are great,” he answered. He paused, then continued quietly. “But we lost Fred in the Final Battle.”

An odd look came over John’s face. Not grief, not exactly. Sorrow, perhaps, mixed with a certain regret, embarrassment, for not having known. “I’m sorry – I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “Goddamn senseless war,” he muttered.

Ron looked like he was going to say something – perhaps that this particular war wasn’t senseless at all – but instead just smiled and gave John an update on Charlie instead.

Mycroft was watching Sherlock, who was staring at John and Weasley.

“So easy to forget he has a past in the Wizarding world, isn’t it?” Mycroft asked. He’d stepped over beside Sherlock while John and Ron caught up.

“Fascinating,” said Sherlock, half under his breath. He watched them a moment more, then turned to Potter.

“John seems rather amused about this mission,” he said, assessing Potter and once again finding him capable and rather understated. “I get the idea he believes Hogwarts could never pass a standard safety screening.” His face was perfectly serious as he continued. “Did you experience any safety or security lapses while you were a student there?”

“Sherlock – stop that.” Mycroft pulled on Sherlock’s elbow, clearly annoyed. “You read Hermione Granger-Weasley’s book. You know Mr. Potter’s experiences were…atypical.” He smiled at Potter apologetically, as if begging forgiveness for his socially inept sibling. “He’s useful,” he explained to Potter, “but has the social graces of a hippogriff.”

Potter smiled. “There were quite a few …” he paused, looking for the right word. “… _anomalies_ during my time at Hogwarts,” he said. “Things are much calmer in the Wizarding world now. No need to bring mountain trolls into the school, or dragons, for that matter.”

“Or basilisks,” added Sherlock. “Helpful book, by the way, Weasley. Thank your wife for me.”

“Ron and I both have children starting at Hogwarts in a couple years,” Potter said. He looked up at the train fondly, much as John had, and perhaps a bit enviously, as if he had half a mind to change places with his child when the time came. “We understand this assessment is for the benefit of the Muggle official, but I have to admit that I’m interested in what you find as well.”

“I’ll need your findings a week from today,” Mycroft reminded them. “Do use the templates I provided in the document, Sherlock. And if you need to contact me, send an owl.” He turned to John. “You haven’t taught him to cast a Patronus, have you?”

John shook his head. 

“Another thing you’ve kept from me,” Sherlock complained. “Add it to the list of spells we’ve discussed, John.”

“Sure, right up there with the jelly legs jinx,” John quipped.

“Well, you’d better be off, Mycroft. Kingdoms to conquer and all that.” 

The look Mycroft gave Sherlock conveyed his unvoiced “Behave yourself, Sherlock.” 

Mycroft and Potter took their leave, Potter pulling Weasley aside for a short private chat before departing. They were barely through the barrier when Sherlock immediately kicked into high gear. 

“Eight carriages with eight compartments each, each seating six students, plus the first carriage with three compartments – prefects and head boy and girl, of course. Capacity for three hundred and eighty-four in the train proper plus an additional eighteen up front. Eight carriages with two doors and sixteen windows each, plus the six windows and two doors on the first carriage or one hundred and fifty two separate potential points of entry and exit.”

Weasley and John stated at him wide-eyed as he bounded into the closest carriage, leaving his bag behind. John followed him, toting both of their bags, clearly less exuberant than Sherlock, while Weasley remained on the platform, gaping.

“Weasley!” Sherlock called from the doorway. “How many carriage doors are open for boarding?”

“Um – all of them?” answered Ron.

“Ah.” Sherlock ducked back inside. Ron climbed slowly aboard, unsure of his footing in this whirlwind named Sherlock Holmes, and stood next to John, who was leaning against the passageway window looking highly amused. Sherlock went from compartment to compartment, opening windows. “All windows are operational, no safety latches, and all open fully.”

“Good?” suggested Ron.

Sherlock gave him the kind of look he usually reserved for Donovan or Anderson. “No. Not good.” He jumped back down to the platform, ran to the other carriage door, and climbed back on board. “Tickets taken on board, then?” he asked.

“Tickets?” Ron’s voice was high-pitched and beginning to sound rather desperate.

John was not helping in the least. He leaned against the window, head turning from Sherlock to Ron as Sherlock demanded and Ron stammered.

“A check-off system, then. Staff members go through the carriages checking off names before the train moves?”

Ron was shaking his head. 

“Photo IDs?”

“IDs?”

Sherlock had moved into a compartment and was in the process of demonstrating that an adult body could just barely squeeze out of a window.

“How many professors ride the train? One per carriage, I assume?”

John studied his fingernails.

“Look, Mr. Holmes –” Ron had finally found his adult voice and moved confidently into the compartment.

“Sherlock.” Sherlock lifted a seat cushion. John had followed Ron in and saw the remains of a year-old cauldron cake and a couple of squashed Chocolate Frogs.

“Right. Sherlock.” Ron waited until Sherlock dropped the cushion. “I know you’ve been away from the Wizarding world for a while. Harry explained – well, about how you self-Obliviated.” He lowered his voice as he spoke, even though there was no one else in the vicinity to hear, as if Sherlock’s action was something to be whispered at and not acknowledged in polite conversation. “I know this all seems strange to you, but this is how we do things here. You get your Hogwarts letter, it tells you to show up here at eleven o’clock in the morning on the first of September, you get on the train and you go to Hogwarts. No tickets, no check-off system, no faculty on board…”

“None at all?” asked Sherlock. He had his wand in his hand now. John frowned. Sherlock knew just enough to be dangerous with that thing.

Ron shook his head. “Not usually. The prefects and Head Boy and Girl make the rounds, though.”

Sherlock stared at Ron. Ron stared back at Sherlock. John’s mouth contorted as he tried to hold back a grin.

John thought Ron Weasley was looking particularly pale behind his freckles.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. Now that he’d made his point, he turned to John.

“Your parents, John. Did your parents come see you off when you left for Hogwarts?”

“Of course they did,” John answered. He smiled and sat on the seat beside the window, putting his feet up on the opposite seat. “So yes, in answer to the question you haven’t asked yet, Muggles _can_ get onto the platform.”

“They can?” asked Ron. He immediately realised his mistake. “Of course they can. I knew that. Hermione’s parents used to come to see her off all the time.” He looked sheepish. “My wife’s Muggle-born.”

“So there is another way to access the platform other than the magical barrier?”

“You can Apparate on,” John said.

“Not anymore,” Ron corrected him. “The Ministry added some additional protections after the war. You can Apparate off the platform, but not onto it.”

“So – is there a separate entrance for Muggles?” Sherlock asked

John shook his head. “No. They go through the barrier, just like we did,” he explained. “At least that’s how it worked when I was in school.”

“So any Muggle passing by could just lean against the barrier and find themselves on Platform 9 ¾ surrounded by robe-wearing wizards, a scarlet steam engine and – what is this?” Sherlock had pried up the petrified Chocolate Frog with his wand tip and was examining it with interest. It gave a very low, very weak _Croak_ and Sherlock fell backward into the seat beside John. The frog flew across the compartment, hitting the window and hanging onto the glass with one flat, misshapen front foot.

John and Ron erupted in laughter. Sherlock watched the frog, fascinated, then poked John in the side with his wand.

“You introduced me to a deplorable magical whiskey but failed to mention magical candy?”

Ron perked up. “I’ll pick up some Bertie Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans in Hogsmeade,” he offered.

Sherlock eyed him suspiciously. “ _Every_ flavour?” he asked. 

“Get that wand out of my side,” John complained. He winked at Ron. “We can have a bit of a contest tonight – see who can identify the most flavours.”

“Back to the barrier,” Sherlock said. He was twirling his wand in his fingers now. 

“Right,” said John, keeping one eye on Sherlock’s wand. “You have to _want_ to go through the wall for the barrier to open,” he explained. “It’s all about intent.”

“Right,” repeated Ron helpfully. “So if you ran headfirst into the fall and thought you’d knock yourself out, you probably would.”

“Only an idiot would try to knock themselves out by running headfirst into a wall,” Sherlock mused. He poked the frog with his wand and it gave a horrible _Ribbit_. Ron cringed. “There are far easier ways to render oneself unconscious.”

“I’d Stupefy myself,” Ron volunteered. 

“Stupefy.” Sherlock considered the word, then turned toward John. “We haven’t learned that one yet either.”

“No,” answered John. “It’s not a very nice spell.”

“But useful,” Ron added.

The train gave three short whistles.

“Three minutes,” Ron said. 

“Can Muggles see the train when it leaves the station?” Sherlock asked. He was standing now and peering out the window again. “Does it use the same tracks as the Muggle trains?”

“It’s complicated,” Ron explained, gratefully easing into familiar territory again. “There are strong Notice Me Not spells on the train, just in case, but it exists, more or less, in Wizard space – you know, like –”

Sherlock went from looking immensely bored to looking genuinely intrigued in the space of a heartbeat. He tucked his wand into the breast pocket of his jacket. “I do know,” he said. “John’s explained it, of course, and I read about the Room of Requirement and the role it played in the War in your wife’s book.” His eyes were bright with interest. “I plan to ask it to present me with the perfect crime.”

“You what?” John, who had been watching the very sad Chocolate Frog as it struggled to maintain its hold on the window, looked up in alarm. “No. Definitely not. Not on your life.” He turned to Ron. “Keep him away from the Room of Requirement, will you?”

The train lurched forward then and slowly pulled out of the station. Sherlock pulled the Chocolate Frog from the window, and unceremoniously dropped it out onto the track. He stood looking out at London, seemingly mesmerised by the passing scenery.

“It’s London,” he said. “Just London. Buildings and people and streets and cars. Nothing magical at all.”

“It’s the same route any train would take to northern Scotland,” John said. 

“Excellent,” Sherlock said. “Then I can use my mobile.” He pulled it out and stared at it, poked a few buttons experimentally. He frowned at John.

“You’re on a magical train, Sherlock. The train is _magical._ Remember?”

Sherlock scowled and pocketed his mobile again. “Well what do we do for six hours, then?”

Ron looked first at John, then let his eyes move to Sherlock. He considered a moment.

“Fancy a game of chess?” he asked.


	3. In Which Sherlock Realizes His Mind Palace Needs Reorganization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Ron go head to head at Wizard's chess, John discovers a special Chocolate Frog card and Sherlock questions why the groundskeeper is responsible for getting children from the train to the castle.

Chapter 3

John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes. He loved him when he was manic, and he loved him when he was insufferable, bored and complaining that everything in life was dull, dull, dull. He loved him when he wouldn’t eat or sleep, and when he slapped on three nicotine patches, and he loved him when he said the most inappropriate things to friends and family alike. He loved his brilliant mind, and his inventive and unconventional ideas (in bed and elsewhere) and he loved the way Sherlock loved him – wholly, truly, and yes, unconventionally, even when Sherlock sometimes forgot John was there at all.

Like now.

The Hogwarts Express was chugging merrily along and Sherlock and Ron were sitting knee to knee over a battered Wizard chess set – travel edition – that Ron had pulled from his duffel bag as soon as Sherlock agreed to a game. 

Ron had twisted his wand in a complicated circle to conjure a small table, and Sherlock had looked absolutely envious of this particular ability, and had given John that significant look – the one that said “Add this one to the list too, John.” Sherlock hadn’t been too startled when the chessmen started talking to him –the experience with the nearly expired Chocolate Frog had, perhaps, prepped him for this eventuality, but he watched the board suspiciously, never quite trusting the pawns wouldn’t scoot over a square if it meant giving Weasley a better shot at victory. They did belong to him, after all, so their neutrality was not a given.

Outside the window, the English landscape was passing them by, looking every bit like the English landscape of every other train ride they’d ever taken north from London. It had fascinated Sherlock at first, but now his attention was focused solely on the game and on his surprisingly formidable opponent.

He didn’t understand how he’d read Weasley so poorly – or, better yet, how he’d missed this particular strategic facet of the man. He’d determined immediately that the Auror was a family man, easy-going, amiable with two children (no more, no less) and a cat. Capable, not a bumbling idiot, but definitely out of his element with Sherlock. Nothing in that first, quick assessment (needs a haircut, button missing on his cuff, twists open his beer bottles with his hand, could have benefited from orthodontics) had given him any reason to imagine that, less than an hour later, he’d be elbows deep in one of the best-played most competitive chess games of his life.

The witch with the food trolley had come by twice in the past three hours. In the years that had passed since John Watson and Ron Weasley had ridden the Hogwarts Express to Scotland and back, the selection had not changed in the least. John had purchased a round of Chocolate Frogs with pumpkin juice to wash them down. Sherlock had declared the pumpkin juice deplorable.

“I’m reporting it as a safety hazard,” he threatened. He looked like he had just accidentally ingested one of his rate-of-decay-of-human-flesh experiments.

John, however, was busy opening his Chocolate Frog. “Snape’s got his own Chocolate Frog card?” he exclaimed, staring at the considerably cleaned-up version of Severus Snape that adorned the card that accompanied his Chocolate Frog. He had a beatific look on his face, gazing slightly upward, and his nose had been trimmed down to an over-large but not hawkish size.

“Yeah – caused a bit of a stir a few years ago when they chose him,” Ron replied. “He was in the ‘Heroes of the Battle of Hogwarts’ edition – well, we all were – but Snape made it through to the permanent collection. Harry had a fit about that picture – said they shouldn’t have prettied him up for the kids.” He looked over at the card and shuddered. “As if Snape could be prettied up.”

“Potter didn’t like him much?” John asked with a half-smile. No one had liked Snape much, expect the Slytherins.

“Harry Potter may have had a rough start with Severus Snape, but he ultimately admired and respected the man.” Both Ron and John swiveled their heads to stare at Sherlock. “He named his second son Albus Severus – honouring the two bravest men he knew.” Sherlock looked from Ron’s surprised face to John’s. “What? Don’t either of you ever read? It’s in Weasley’s wife’s book for Merlin’s sake.”

John burst out laughing.

“Merlin’s sake?” His face crinkled up and his shoulders shook. “Merlin? Sherlock – where the _hell_ did you pick that up?”

Sherlock shrugged and pulled out a small book from the inside pocket of his jacket. 

“Hey- that’s Hermione’s book!” Ron exclaimed, looking pleased. “One of the best sellers, actually.”

“ _A Muggle-Born’s Guide to the Wizarding World_?” John snatched the book out of Sherlock’s hand. “Where did you get this? And where was this book when I got my Hogwarts letter?”

“The name of Merlin is used in a number of phrases, much as we may use God,” Sherlock said, turning his attention back to the chess game. The pieces were beginning to get restless, and a black knight, which had been captured and removed from the board, had jumped on the back of John’s uneaten Chocolate Frog and was urging it to hop on the board and attack the white king. “For example, Merlin’s saggy y-fronts’ and ‘Merlin’s angry diaper rash’ and my personal favorite ‘Merlin’s left tit.’” He paused, hand hovering over a rook. “I do wonder, though – why the left one and not the right?”

Ron was grinning broadly even as he studied the board. He plucked the knight off the frog and stuck it to the table where it struggled to move against the chocolate that effectively sealed it in place. “You do know Harry is married to my sister – Al’s my nephew. And I know all about Harry and Snape.” He bit the head off his frog. “I know all about Harry and everything,” he said, but he didn’t invite further questions and Sherlock looked at him oddly but let it go.

John spent the next hour reading the useful guide while Ron and Sherlock hyper-focused on the board. They were on game number five – and drawn at two apiece – when the train started to slow and eased into Hogsmeade. Weasley sighed and glanced at the board – he was clearly headed for a decisive win.

“Hogsmeade Station,” he said. “Hagrid will be waiting for us – no time to finish the game.”

Sherlock glanced out the window. He seemed surprised to find that dusk was already beginning to settle.

“Hagrid?” he asked. 

“Hagrid is the groundskeeper at Hogwarts,” Ron provided. “It’s his job to meet the train and escort the students to the castle.”

“It’s the _groundskeeper’s_ responsibility to meet the train? The _groundskeeper_?”

Ron shrugged. He clearly accepted that when his children boarded the Hogwarts Express, they’d be led to Hogwarts by this Hagrid. “He’s a big brute of a man – his mum was a giant.”

Sherlock glanced at John, who shrugged.

“He’s right,” John said. “And he means a giant giant – the magical creatures, I mean. Not just a very large woman. Giants can be fifteen or twenty feet tall.” An odd look came over his face. “They aren’t very nice.”

“Of course not.” Sherlock didn’t look convinced.

“And Hagrid’s dad was an ordinary wizard. Smallish bloke, Hagrid says,” Ron added. 

“Of course.” Sherlock’s tone of voice clearly conveyed that he was not finished with this one quite yet. He moved his knees as Ron reluctantly packed up the chess set, then settled back into the carriage seat, hands steepled before his face and eyes focused on Weasley. “So – twenty foot tall female giant, smallish human bloke. How, exactly, did conception occur?”

Ron looked at him blankly for a drawn-out moment. Sherlock’s focus did not waver. He lifted an eyebrow.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Ron said. “But now, thanks to that mental image, I’ll never think of anything else when I see Hagrid. I can’t wait to tell Harry – put him off food for a week or so too.”

John pointed at Sherlock. “And you’re not asking Hagrid so get that idea right out of your head,” he said. 

Now Ron was chuckling. “I’ll have my wife draw you a diagram,” he said. “She’s good at that.”

Five minutes later, once the train had shuddered to a final stop, Sherlock stood on the platform of Hogsmeade Station looking up at the towering hulk of Rubeus Hagrid. This - _this_ is who welcomed the children to Hogwarts?

Hagrid clearly had a soft spot for Ron, and seemed delighted to be reintroduced to John. He shook John’s hand aggressively, then John introduced him to Sherlock, who offered his own hand to Hagrid, albeit reluctantly.

“Where are the carriages?” Ron asked. “We’re supposed to be giving them the full Hogwarts experience – Harry said they need to go through exactly what the first years do.”

“Fuck,” John said. He covered his mouth as Hagrid narrowed his eyes at him. “Sorry – I just realized how we’ll be getting to Hogwarts.”

“Oh, no. Hagrid. Not the boats.” Ron looked positively green. 

“Splendid!” said Sherlock. He earned an approving look from Hagrid at his exuberance. Hagrid could not have known, of course, that Sherlock found him particularly useful, having recreated the Hogwarts menu from the past two days based on the food particles in his beard. Further study of the menu would be unnecessary – Sherlock had already found it to be woefully lacking from a nutritional perspective.

Hagrid led them down the road, holding an old-fashioned carriage lantern before him. He carried a pink umbrella in the other hand, an incongruous statement but no one beside Sherlock seemed to think it odd. They turned down a narrow path that brought them to the edge of the lake in five minutes.

They stood there now, with gentle waves lapping the shore at their feet, staring across the expanse of dark water at the castle.

John was still, quietly staring, heart swelling in his chest at the sight of the castle after all these years. Perched high above them, windows beginning to twinkle in the fading light, it was still a beacon for him, still the epitome of home, despite the way he had left it, despite what the magical world had taken from him.

“They bring the students to Hogwarts over the water the first night for a reason.” Sherlock stood just behind him, and his voice was soft in John’s ear. “An impression like this must stay with you a very long time.” He rested his chin on John’s shoulder and briefly – very briefly – John wondered what it might have been like to have Sherlock Holmes with him at Hogwarts. But the private moment was broken by Hagrid.

“Would ya hold this while I get the boats ready?”

Hagrid had shoved a bucket at Sherlock, and Sherlock peered into it with a wary eye, already understanding that one must tread carefully around Rubeus Hagrid.

Ron wrinkled his nose. “Squid food,” he said. 

“Thestral intestines,” Hagrid supplied, happily. “He lurves ‘em. I harvested them myself this morning – one of the old fellers died overnight.”

“Don’t touch them, they’re for the squid,” John said as Sherlock’s eyes lit up, possibly at the idea of feeding thestral intestines to the squid, but more likely at the possibility of a dead thestral somewhere on the Hogwarts property that might provide even more spare parts.

Hagrid was untying two small boats. Sherlock, seeming to suddenly recall exactly why he was there, pushed the bucket into Ron’s hands, and clambered down to the shore.

“How many per boat?” he asked. Hagrid was tipping the first boat up to dump out the rainwater pooled in the bottom.

Hagrid frowned at Sherlock. “Four o’us, two boats. Two per boat, then.” He clearly was not accustomed to being the bright one in the group and having to perform simple arithmetic for other wizards.

Sherlock frowned back at him. There was quite a bit of frowning going on this evening.

“Students. How many students per boat?”

“Oh, varies,” Hagrid answered, shrugging his great shoulders. “No more’n four per boat, though.”

Sherlock pulled out his wand and lit it with a quick _Lumos_. He pointed it into the boat, moving it to shine under the seats like an electric torch.

“Looking for life preservers, by any chance?” asked John conversationally. “First aid kits? Motor or oars, maybe?”

Ron rolled his eyes. “And no role call here, either,” he said. “No check list. No professors in the boats with the kids.” He paused, mentally counting on his fingers. “And no way of knowing if all the children make it from the train to the boats, other than Hagrid counting them.”

“I count ‘em,” protested Hagrid. “Make sure the same number get outta the boats as gets in.”

“Do any ever fall out?” Sherlock asked Hagrid a few minutes later as they boarded the boats. He’d gotten his favorite shoes wet and one of his socks was squishy inside the shoe.

“Oh, yeah. Lots’a times,” Hagrid answered. “But I just pluck ‘em back out o’the water. They get excited when they see the squid.”

“You do realize squid are sea creatures and this is a fresh water lake,” Sherlock said. 

“It’s a magic squid,” whispered John. “And a magic lake.”

The squid did make a brief appearance, raising a tentacle and caressing Hagrid’s arm until he tossed a handful of entrails at it. 

“You rely heavily on the children’s magic,” Sherlock said as they watched the squid play with a ropey intestine. “To protect the children.”

“It does a good job of it,” John answered. He was sitting on the seat in front of Sherlock in the boat they shared, gazing up at the castle on the hill as the boat scooted magically along. “Wizarding families don’t worry about the kinds of things Muggle parents have to.”

“They always float,” Hagrid volunteered. “I jus’ pluck ‘em right out’a the water and plop ‘em back in the boat.”

“I’m not sure this is the best idea,” John said to Sherlock, turning around to face him so only Sherlock could hear. “The magical-Muggle dichotomy is what made you give this all up before. You’re the last person in the world who can convince a Minister that it doesn’t matter that the boats don’t have life jackets and the train doesn’t have emergency exits or adult supervision and the lake has a giant fresh-water squid that eats guts.”

“My job isn’t to convince,” Sherlock answered. “My job is to _report_.” He looked past John, at the castle looming just above them, disappearing from sight as the boats slipped through a curtain of ivy into a tunnel leading to a quiet cove. In the darkness of the tunnel he reached forward and grasped John’s hand, squeezing it then quickly letting it go before the feeble starlight lit the water again. The boats scraped as they came to rest on the pebbled bottom near the shore. “And honestly, I had enough information before we boarded the train. The Minister will never let his child anywhere near this place so I might as well make the most of it and enjoy myself.”

They followed Hagrid up a passageway in the rocks and onto the Hogwarts grounds. John looked around the now pristine grounds and swallowed a lump in his throat. 

“Took years to clean it up, even with magic,” Ron commented. He’d obviously been watching John’s reaction to stepping onto the grounds. “There’s even a cemetery now – quite a few that died in the Final Battle are buried here. Remus and Tonks, my brother Fred – a few others you might know.”

“Students died.” Sherlock was dipping into the data he had stored after reading the book Mycroft had given him. “Yet you’ve repeatedly indicated that magic protects the children.”

“It does,” Ron said, glancing up at the Astronomy Tower above them. “At least until they start learning to control it – to use it deliberately. Once they can control it, magic doesn’t always make the decisions _for_ them. They make their own – for good or for ill.”

“And therein lies the rub,” Sherlock muttered, moving away from them toward the castle stairs. He climbed up to the landing and turned to survey the grounds from the better vantage point. “What’s next?” he asked.

“Next,” spoke someone from behind him, “is the feast.” A black-robed witch, impossibly old, moved out of the shadows and stood before him. “Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Holmes.” She extended a thin, feeble-looking hand, and Sherlock took it, discovering in doing so that it wasn’t feeble at all. The woman had a certain catlike strength and a no-nonsense attitude. Her eyes were sharp and blue, visible even in the dim light. She seemed to assess him curiously and a bit doubtfully, as if she wasn’t accustomed to the Ministry sending anyone qualified her way.

“Professor McGonagall – Headmistress.”

John was offering his hand now, and she took it with a smile.

“Mr. Watson – welcome back.” She said the words as if she truly meant them. “I do hope your visit this week will restore some of the joy you once knew here.”

“Did you mention a feast?” Ron leaned in to kiss the headmistress’ cheek. His stomach growled loudly and she chuckled. 

“Some things never change, Mr. Weasley.” The headmistress turned back to Sherlock. “Mr. Holmes, I sat through a very tedious Ministry briefing yesterday regarding your visit – a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, don’t you think?” She took him by the arm and led him toward the castle doors. “Since we all already know what you will find when you apply Muggle standards to a magical property, why don’t we cut through the crap and save ourselves a bit of time and effort? I’ve a copy of the forms the Muggle Ministry provided you – I’ll have a go at them while you and Mr. Watson have a bit of a holiday here. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see or do?”

“Excellent plan and yes, absolutely,” Sherlock answered. He had a penchant for elderly women, but wondered if he’d met his match in this one. “We can start with the Room of Requirement,” he said, voice rising in excitement as he continued without pause. “Camping in the Forbidden Forest. A dip in the lake. The Potions laboratory. Ghosts – definitely ghosts. The Shrieking Shack, secret tunnels, the Whomping Willow…” He paused. “Towers, turrets, battlements, dungeons, hidden passages, moving staircases. Giant chess set – I read about that – it belongs to you, doesn’t it? Quidditch pitch. Hospital wing – if I break my arm playing Quidditch they’ll give me Skele-gro, won’t they? And is there a magical replacement for nicotine?”

“You play Quidditch?” Ron asked, surprised. John, in the meantime, stood there with his mouth slightly ajar. He tried to wordlessly convey to the headmistress that Sherlock Holmes was _not_ to be allowed anywhere near the Room of Requirement or, for that matter, to swim in the lake or camp in the Forbidden Forest.

“Quidditch? He doesn’t even watch football. He’s never been on a broom either,” John said, sounding exasperated. “Sherlock –”

“Does he know about the spiders in the Forbidden Forest?” Ron continued.

“I know about the Ford Anglia,” Sherlock said, cutting Ron off with a pleased grin. He looked around, taking in his new surroundings. “Oh.”

They’d stepped through the great castle doors and had passed into the Entry Hall, The gem-filled hourglasses sparkled, the marble stairway gleamed, polished to perfection by a crew of house elves bereft of their student charges for the summer. The castle was enormous, breathtaking, majestic and nearly vibrating with magic. 

It was almost too much for the great consulting detective. He’d constructed a veritable fortress of a mind palace over the years, and had filled it with all manner of things trivial and important. But the filing system was entirely wrong for something of this magnitude. He suddenly felt out of place– and he knew he _looked_ out of place in his tailored jacket and expensive shoes and collared shirt with just the right number of buttons undone. 

None of it mattered here. No one was the least impressed with his knowledge, deductive skills or the figure he cut.

Ron headed toward another set of solid doors. “Come on – Great Hall is here. I can smell the roasted chicken already.”

“Go on – we’ll join you in a minute,” the headmistress said, dismissing Hagrid, John and Ron.

John stopped behind Ron and turned. “I’ll wait too,” he said, looking at Sherlock and McGonagall curiously.

“Go on, Mr. Watson,” she said. She walked to an alcove and pulled out a three-legged stool. On top of it, looking every one of its thousand years, sat the singed Sorting Hat. “We’ll be right behind you,” she said with a wink. She glanced at Sherlock. “The first-years always come in last.”

TBC


	4. In Which the Sorting Hat Has its Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock gets Sorted and meets a half dozen Harry Potters.

Sherlock Holmes had, through the years of his adult life, put up with his share of ridiculousness. Musical theater with his parents, for example. An occasional meeting with a singularly unqualified Head of State. A brief visit to Buckingham Palace. Anderson’s far-fetched theories. John insisting he wasn’t gay. But sitting at the front of the nearly empty Great Hall, with knees akimbo as he perched atop this three-legged stool, had to be one of the most ridiculous things to which he’d ever been subjected.

He hadn’t wanted to be sorted at all, and definitely not on the rickety old stool. He’d been busy staring at the enchanted ceiling, at the stars and clouds and touch of moonlight and the occasional owl flying overhead. And miraculous ceiling notwithstanding, the Hall was intriguing in its own right – large and grand and shadowy, illuminated by hundreds of beeswax candles suspended on nothing, hanging in the air above his head.

Magic. He breathed it in, wondering if Beauxbatons had been anything at all like Hogwarts.

Hagrid hat seated himself near the end of the head table, on a chair obviously specially designed to accommodate his girth. Still, he had to sit spread-legged as his knees didn’t fit under the table. He beamed at Sherlock and gave him a hearty thumbs up as he approached. Weasley and John were sitting at one of the student tables, at the front of the hall. They sat facing each other on opposite sides of the table, and turned to look at him as he tried to keep pace with the Headmistress. He didn’t miss that both of them were smirking, or that they were chanting “Gryffindor! Gryffindor” as he passed them by.

He’d given this some thought when he’d read _Hogwarts, a History_ and thought Gryffindor was rather a long shot considering the more obvious possibilities.

Were he still gathering information about safety issues at Hogwarts, he’d surely mention the danger of scalding candle wax dripping on students during the Welcome Feast.

When he reluctantly sat on the stool, glaring at it to show his disapproval, he decided that wobbly three-legged stools were nearly as dangerous as the dripping wax, and gave the Headmistress kudos for stopping the safety inspection farce when she did.

When the Sorting Hat was placed on his head, he wondered at the wisdom of every incoming student wearing the same hat. If only one of them had an infestation of head lice….

 _Head lice?_ A voice in his head, loud and clear and very much unwelcome – it was _his_ mind palace after all – cut directly into his thoughts. Sherlock started, turned his head to the right then the left. He caught John’s eye. John gave him an encouraging nod. _Go with it._

It was the hat talking. Definitely the hat. And while he didn’t think anyone else could hear it, from the looks on their faces they all knew exactly what was happening.

 _Magical hats do not spread vermin, Mr. Holmes. Ahhh…Holmes. Sherlock Holmes. I haven’t had the pleasure of sorting someone from your line since your mum sat on this chair with her braids and her bossy attitude and that was nearly fifty years ago. Difficult case, very difficult. Brilliant, but oh so very brave. And cunning, too. Got what she wanted, your mum did. But that’s a story for another day, or perhaps for never._ The voice faded away, but Sherlock had the vague feeling that someone was trying to corral his thoughts. _What have we here? What have we here?_

The hat seemed to contract around his head, tightening then loosening marginally. _Oh my, what have we_ here _? Not a child – oh no, not a child at all – though you still having some growing up to do, don’t you? Hmmm…. You understand, Sherlock Holmes, why we sort witches and wizards while they’re children, and not adults?_

“Of course I understand,” he answered, speaking under his breath and feeling a bit ridiculous for having to speak aloud to a voice inside his head. “The Hogwarts House system separates children not by their interests or abilities, but by their basic motivations, goals and values. As such, it provides a ready-made social structure, a sense of family and unity inside each house, friends who will work together for common goals, and who will self-police for the good of the house.”

 _Ahh. So you do understand, or have been doing your homework at the very least._ The hat’s voice seemed infinitely old, extraordinarily wise and more than a bit imperious. _Children, Mr. Holmes, are malleable._ The hat paused, and cackled a little with forcibly suppressed laughter. _You, however, are not. Malleable, that is. You are no table rasa, Mr. Holmes. What, might I ask, is the point of me sitting on your head, looking into that brilliant mind of yours – oh yes, brilliant indeed. Such a thirst for knowledge, such a desire to sort through details, to arrange chaotic data, to know and to discover. To learn and to understand. You, Mr. Holmes, are the quintessential Ravenclaw._

Sherlock let out a dissatisfied sigh. He very much wanted to get the hat off his head. The idea of anyone – or anything - poking about in his brain was both horrifying and abhorrent. “As I assumed,” he said. Boring boring boring. Of course it was Ravenclaw. Had there ever been any doubt? “Then we’re finished? It’s Ravenclaw?”

 _Oh – not so fast, Mr. Holmes, not so fast. Am I sorting who you are_ now _or who you were then? Who you might have been? Perhaps…perhaps I need to dig a bit deeper._

“No. No need to dig deeper.” Sherlock reached up and tugged at the top of the hat. Not surprisingly, it wouldn’t budge. “Fine.” He folded his arms. “Get on with it already. Weasley is hungry.”

 _Ronald Weasley has never_ not _been hungry,_ the hat said with a laugh. _So – children, Mr. Holmes, come to Hogwarts as balls of clay, unshaped, unmolded. Their robes are new and unfamiliar to them, they have wands they don’t yet know how to wield. Their eyes are wide with wonder. This moment – this moment you are experiencing now at your rather advanced age, is the most critical point of their very young lives. The name I call out – Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor – the name I call out after poking around in their minds a bit, will affect them for the rest of their lives. It is no small thing, no small thing at all. What if I had placed Harry Potter in Slytherin, or Severus Snape in Gryffindor? Or sorted a Weasley into Hufflepuff?_

“You do realize I understand, don’t you?” Sherlock asked, more than a bit annoyed with the impromptu lesson-lecture. “Your appointed task is important. Critical. You make decisions that will affect the remainder of these children’s lives. It’s too late for me. I’m no longer a lump of clay. In fact, I’m rather set in my ways, so sorting is really quite unnecessary.”

 _Set in your ways? Mr. Holmes –you have a void inside you as deep as the black lake. I’m not often given the opportunity to poke around in the brains of someone of your…depth. Children children children – they’re all I see, aren’t they? Well, and the occasional Sword of Gryffindor, of course._ The hat cackled gleefully, and Sherlock tried once more to rip it from his head. The hat dug in, though, and kept talking. _None of that – I’ve got more to say, and a captive audience to hear it. All your life you’ve sought to understand. To see. To reason. To_ deduce _. But you went about it all wrong, didn’t you? Perhaps you should have used magic to understand science, instead of the other way around?_

“Science has nothing to do with magic. Magic defies science. Magic is _apart_ from science.” This was important. This was how he lived with one foot in each world.

 _Doesn’t it?_ asked the hat. _Oh, Mr. Holmes. Such curious bright eyes and yet you do not see. What is science but the study of the world through observation and experiment? You have tools available to you now that any scientist would envy. Use them, Mr. Holmes, to solve your chicken and egg dilemma. Study the world with magic, Mr. Holmes, instead of using science to study magic._

The hat seemed to relax on his head, and the voice quieted. But as soon as he reached up to remove it, it tightened marginally and a voice, a very quiet voice, seemed to whisper in his ear. _You’ve constructed a veritable fortress of a mind, my dear wizard, impregnable, unassailable. You’ve experienced the world in a way most wizards could never contemplate. You’ve died, Mr. Holmes, and risen again. You’ve been on top of the world and flat on your back in the gutter. You’ve kept yourself apart from humanity even while living amidst a swarming hive of city-dwellers. You received a Hogwarts letter twenty-five years ago and rejected us then. But I think it’s time you join us, Mr. Holmes. You’ve given your talents to the Muggle world for long enough, don’t you think?_

“No! I don’t think, actually,” Sherlock began to protest, but his words were drowned out by the hat’s delighted cry –

“Hogwarts Muggle Studies Professor!”

“What?” Sherlock jumped to his feet, tugging the hat from his head and holding it before him in a stranglehold around its middle.

“Excellent!” exclaimed the Headmistress. “We were at the point where the Ministry was going to have to appoint someone.”

“It can’t sort him as a Professor!” protested John. He and Ron had both risen to their feet. “What about Ravenclaw?”

“I don’t get a house because I’m not a lump of clay,” groused Sherlock. “And I’m not a professor. And I don’t like children.”

The headmistress leaned in. “Many of our professors don’t,” she confided. “You’ll be in good company – and it’s only for a semester while Madame Robards is on maternity leave.”

“Welcome t’ Hogwarts!” Hagrid took Sherlock’s hand and pumped it aggressively. “You’ll love it ‘ere, really.”

“I’ll love it for a _visit_ ,” Sherlock said. “A _visit_. Three or four nights. Not an entire term. John!” He whirled, looking for John, but John was still standing at the table, with the same expression he’d worn for most of the trip so far – half perplexed, half amused. Sherlock clearly was out of his element. He had no idea if some sort of archaic magical law would force him to accept a position for which he was neither prepared or qualified and which he certainly did not want.

“Can it – can it _do_ that?”sputtered Ron. He directed his gaze at McGonagall. “The Sorting Hat can’t name a professor. He – he doesn’t have to stay. I mean – look at him.” He swept his hand out to indicate Sherlock, then exchanged a worried glance with John. 

“Ah – here it is. Took long enough.”

All heads turned toward the Headmistress. A scroll had popped into her hands out of nowhere, and she broke the seal and unrolled it. 

“Hmm – yes. It all seems to be in good order.” She pointed her wand at a salt shaker on the table and transfigured it into an inkwell, then turned a knife into a quill. “Magical contract,” she explained, dipping the quill into the ink and signing her name with a flourish. She extended the quill to Sherlock. “I’m sure you’ll find it all in order, Mr. Holmes – or, should I say, Professor Holmes?”

John, who had stepped forward while the headmistress was signing, took the quill from her hand.

“Is there precedent for something like this?” he asked. His voice was calm, and he smiled as he slipped his arm around Sherlock. “We’ve only been back in the magical world for a bit over a year, now.”

McGonagall sighed, shaking her head . “I do apologize – got caught up in it all, and the problem of the Muggle Studies position has been on my mind.” She looked at Sherlock. “The Sorting Hat predates even Hogwarts,” she explained. “The four founders each contributed a bit of their magic to enchant it. It’s the oldest magical object known in our world, and its pronouncements are never taken lightly.” She tilted her head, looking at him curiously. “I must ask, Mr. Holmes – what transpired in your rather lengthy conversation?”

“It was more a lecture than a conversation, actually,” Sherlock answered. He was still gripping the hat, and he dropped it on the stool. “The hat seems to think I am too old to be sorted, though it admitted I would have gone to Ravenclaw if I’d come to school here.”

“That’s good enough for me,” John said with a grin. “Always good to have a few Ravenclaw friends to help you revise and to sort out riddles and such.”

“Personally, I think I’d prefer a Gryffindor friend to cover my back,” Sherlock said. He was quiet, and very serious, and Ron, witnessing the exchange, took a step closer.

“What else did the hat say?” the headmistress asked. “It obviously would like you to stay here at Hogwarts.”

“It’s of the opinion – ” He paused and glanced at the hat. It looked nothing more than an ancient felt hat. “It believes that I’ve not yet done my part for the magical world – that my efforts –” he did not say _my brilliant mind_ \- “have, to date, been devoted to the betterment of the Muggle world.” His eyes strayed now to the contract, unrolled on the table and weighted down by the old-fashioned ink bottle and a golden goblet. 

McGonagall walked to the table and rolled up the contract. “We’ll deal with this later, gentlemen. I suspect it must be dealt with, whatever your decision. The castle can be very particular….”

Just how particular the castle could be was demonstrated some time later when the Headmistress escorted them to their rooms. 

The door would not budge.

The headmistress glared at it, tried several spells with her wand, and then, when she’d failed at unlocking the door, vanishing it, turning it into sand, and blasting it off its hingers, she sighed in exasperation and succeeded in turning a section of the wooden door transparent. 

“Nice,” said John, grinning as he peered inside. Four poster, turret windows, thick rug in front of a large fireplace.

“Not so nice if we can’t get inside,” Sherlock returned.

“Harry!”

John swung around in a circle as a series of small _pops _filled the quiet corridor. A half dozen small creatures seemed to materialize around them. It had been years since he’d seen a house elf – years since he’d even thought of one, but Sherlock looked absolutely delighted.__

“The hidden labour force,” he said. “Look, John! _Look!_ ”

“He’s read Hermione’s edition of _Hogwarts_ , hasn’t he?” muttered Ron, who had come out from his room to see what was happening.

“Harry? Rather an odd name for a house elf,” Sherlock said. “I understood they all had names like Winky and Knobby and Frankenstein.”

“Franken-who?”

“I think he means Kreacher,” John explained. “He would have read about him, remember?”

“Oh – right.” It was obvious Ron did not understand the association.

“I’m always assured of finding a house elf if I call for Harry,” explained the headmistress. “After the war, there was a rush of births – we lost thirteen house elves in the Final Battle, you know – and nearly every elf child, regardless of gender, was named Harry Potter.”

“Oh, this is rich,” Ron said. “Harry is never going to believe this…”

“We had five Harrys, three Nevilles, a Ron and two Hermione’s enter Hogwarts three years ago,” McGonagall said with a smirk.

“What? Only one Ron?” Ron asked. He looked horribly affronted.

The headmistress turned to one of the young elves now. “Harry Potter,” she said, and the elf bowed until its forehead grazed the stone floor. “Please go inside this room and attempt to open the door from the inside.”

The elf squeaked a reply. “I is afraid I cannot do that, Madam Headmistress Sir.”

The headmistress’ eyes narrowed. She straightened her back. “Explain,” she demanded.

“The professors and their families is to stay in faculty quarters,” he squeaked. “We has prepared faculty quarters for Professor Holmes.”

Sherlock stared at the elf, then at the headmistress, then finally at John.

John shrugged. “I’m knackered,” he said. He held out his arm to Sherlock. “Come on, Professor Holmes, let’s go to bed.”

“We’re calling Mycroft, you know,” Sherlock said as they followed the Harry Potters down the corridor.

“You mean owling him,” said John.

“Of course.” Their voices trailed away as they turned a corner.

“Oh, and John?”

“Hmm?”

“What exactly _is_ Muggle Studies?”


	5. In Which Sherlock and John have Sex in a Rather Glorious Four Poster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The four poster bed in their quarters is the biggest they've ever seen and the most comfortable bed they've ever been in. Sherlock considers selling his soul for this bed. So naturally they have sex in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, this chapter is pretty much all about Sherlock and John having sex. Two thousand words of it, in fact.
> 
> Note - I've changed the story rating to "E" with this chapter.

Chapter 5

“I think I might sign that contract just to have this bed.”

John, stretched out beside Sherlock on the largest four-poster he’d ever seen, head on a stack of three cloudlike pillows and sinking into the most glorious feather comforter, sighed in satisfaction.

“You’d miss 221B,” he said, rather vaguely. “You’d miss London, and cab rides, and Mrs. Hudson, and New Scotland Yard.”

Sherlock’s gave a noncommittal hmmm. “But I’d have this bed. _This_ bed, John.”

“For someone who spends so little time sleeping, you’re rather taken with the bed,” John answered. “And I think you mean _we’d_ have this bed.”

“You’d be here with me? You couldn’t live in the middle of Scotland and work in London.”

“Well, actually, I _could_ ,” John replied. He rolled to his side and propped up his elbow, resting his head on one hand. Sherlock looked a bit like the cat who’d just been in the cream. He was staring up at the wispy canopy above them, seemingly made of layers of tulle. He’d taken off his jacket and shoes, but was still fully dressed otherwise. “I could Floo from this room to 221B every morning – provided Mycroft could get the Floo connections set up – and he can, by the way – and Floo back here every night.”

“Well, that eliminates my primary objection to the Sorting, then,” Sherlock said.

John laughed. “You’re absolutely insane,” he said. But he leaned over and kissed Sherlock, and Sherlock drew him in closer, wrapping an arm around John’s back.

“Insane?” whispered Sherlock into John’s ear as he kissed that spot at the juncture of neck and jaw. “Surely the opportunity to explore the magical world from within Hogwarts for an entire term is worth the inconvenience of dealing with children for a few months?”

John shuddered as Sherlock’s lips moved lower on his neck. “Children who include nearly-grown eighteen-year olds and away-from-home-for-the-first-time eleven-year-olds,” he said. Sherlock had rolled him onto his back now, and he groaned as Sherlock rolled atop him. “And most of the rest of them going through puberty.”

“You’re trying to talk me out of this,” Sherlock said. He worked his mouth from John’s ear to his jaw, pressed against him with his hips.

“You didn’t even know what Muggle Studies was,” John reminded him as he returned the press of hips with upward pressure of his own. “And you’ve never been a teacher, you don’t especially like children, and don’t you think people will wonder where you’ve gone off to if you disappear for four months?” He bit his bottom lip and let out a strangled groan. “God, Sherlock….” He wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders. Maintaining a conversation was becoming difficult. “I mean … there’s only so long I can pass off your absence by saying you’re having a proper sulk. One month, maybe two….”

Sherlock canted his hips again. “This bed is made for sex, John. Do tell me that the students’ beds are not quite so decadent. I wouldn’t want to put _that_ on my report.”

“Not quite,” murmured John. It was difficult to think with Sherlock rocking down against him, with Sherlock’s lips still moving along his neck and jaw and ear. “We’ll probably need to try one out, though – for the investigation. The minister will need to know…ahhhh….”

“Aren’t there magical ways to get you naked?” Sherlock asked a few minutes later as he worked John’s shirt open and tugged it off one arm.

John laughed even as he arched up as Sherlock’s fingers grazed his nipple. “Not many that preserve the clothing,” he gasped. “Unbuttoning charms, yeah.” He fumbled for his wand, then traced it along Sherlock’s shirt. “Desaptare,” he said. 

Sherlock, propped up above John with his palms on the mattress, watched his shirt fall open. “Add that one to the list," he said as he lowered his head, moving his lips to a nipple and grazing his tongue over it before pulling it into his mouth. John arched up again, then worked one leg over the back of Sherlock’s thighs.

“I know another,” he managed, breathless. “How much do you like those trousers?”

The spell John uttered next effectively disintegrated the threads holding every seam together.

“They don’t teach these to the children, do they?” Sherlock asked, balancing himself on his palms again as John pushed pieces of cloth and elastic out off the way. 

John grinned even as his hand closed around Sherlock and Sherlock groaned and fell sideways onto his back. John followed him down, settling between Sherlock’s thighs. “Auror stuff,” he said. “Very useful in executing strip searches.”

As his mouth came down over Sherlock, Sherlock pushed up onto his elbows, watching John take him in.

John seemed to get as much pleasure from pleasing Sherlock as Sherlock did from the act itself. He worked with the skill and precision of a surgeon, mouth and lips and tongue and teeth, taking him deep, quickly, the head of his cock pressing again and again against the back of John’s throat, lips forming the tightest seal as the flesh of his erection pushed in to encounter tongue and heat and wetness and delicious pressure. As pleasure mounted, John’s dexterous fingers worked their way into his cleft, pulling apart his cheeks as a finger grazed over him then slowly, deftly, pressed inside, just enough, then out to graze over him again, in again – just enough….

His eyes were half-lidded, heavy, as he pushed into John’s mouth again, watching him take it, watching him _want_ it, until the sensation was too much.

John looked up at just exactly the right time, pressing his finger in again, deeper this time, as he took Sherlock in to the root, humming around him.

Sherlock saw stars when he came. Bright stars over dark skies with owls flying over, gleaming explosions of supernovas light years away, flickering candles suspended in the air above them, hot droplets of wax exquisitely burning his skin from within.

“I meant to top tonight,” he muttered as John crawled up his body and pressed against him, kissing him into sleepy submission.

“Wake me up with it,” John said. "I’ve got something special in mind for you now.”

“You realise you’re still dressed?” Sherlock said.

John smiled. "Right. I can take care of that." He stood, then took his time undressing as Sherlock watched him.

“You’re going to have to learn a spell – rather a difficult one – but it will be worth it.”

“Now?”

“Now. I think you’ll be a natural at it, or I wouldn’t suggest it under these circumstances.”

John crawled into bed beside Sherlock and handed him his own wand. He rolled against Sherlock, rocking his hips to press himself against his sated lover. 

“There’s a branch of mind magic – to allow one person to enter another’s mind, explore around, read their thoughts and memories. No, let me finish.” Sherlock, even in his languid state, had tensed beneath him. “Used by enemies, it can equate to mental rape. Used by lovers, it – well…” He pressed a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “…it can greatly enhance the physical experience.”

“How does it work?” murmured Sherlock, intrigued.

“It’s called Legilimency. It’s counter is Occlumency – closing the mind against the attack or intrusion of the Legilimens. A skilled Occlumens can block the Legilimens. But an Occlumens can also shift thoughts and emotions and experiences, offering some to the intruder, but not others. I was trained in both.” He turned Sherlock’s head toward his own, locked eyes with him. “Do you trust me?”

“I do recall stepping into a fireplace with you,” Sherlock replied. “And holding your arm while you Apparated us back to Baker Street from St. Mungo’s. _And_ I drink the tea you give me without checking it for drugs….”

John held his eyes. He had the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Right. But do you trust me with _this_?” He reached out, moving his hand slowly until his finger rested on Sherlock’s temple.

Ah. A different story altogether.

Sherlock took only a moment to consider. Nodded.

John’s smile grew. “You’re going to like this,” he said. “The spell is _Legilimens_. It will be easiest if you point the wand at my temple. You’ll want to think about reading my mind, sorting through my memories. But I’ll be working on my side too, to lift up what I want you to see. Right?”

“Right.” Sherlock’s voice didn’t hold its usual confidence. 

“You’ll be fine – I promise. To be able to surgically self-obliviate, you had to be a natural at this once, Sherlock.”

Sherlock nodded. “Alright.” He smiled. “I should like this.”

“You _will_ like this. But wait – wait until I’m in you, all the way, buried balls deep….”

Sherlock shifted, closed his eyes, bit his lip. He was nowhere close to being able to be aroused again, yet just the sound of John’s voice saying those words….”

“Hey, look at me.”

Sherlock opened his eyes. John was moving, kneeling between Sherlock’s legs. He pulled a pillow over, positioned it under Sherlock’s hips.

“You’ve got to keep your eyes open. You’ve got to maintain eye contact once you say the spell. If you break eye contact, you break the spell.”

Sherlock nodded. John took back his wand and conjured a palmful of lube, handed the wand back to Sherlock, and began to work him.

And no matter that they’d done this often enough, there was something different about it already. Perhaps the comfortable, accommodating bed with its diaphanous cloud of a canopy, its heavy velvet bed curtains tied back with gold braid. Or maybe the fireplace, large enough to duck into, made of stone quarried and shaped a thousand years ago. Perhaps it was the magic of the castle, semi-sentient in its own right. While John worked, he pressed his mouth against Sherlock’s thigh, breathing kisses and gentle bites on the sensitive flesh, sliding fingers in and out, finding Sherlock’s prostate and nudging it, retreating, unerringly finding it again. Sherlock wondered if he’d ever been as relaxed as he was now, even in the depths of his drug-addled days, sleeping bonelessly on cold floors and ratty mattresses. He watched John bite his own lip, trying to take measured breaths, to stave off the need. Then he was repositioning Sherlock’s legs, canting up his hips, pressing back his knees and pushing inside, with a slide so slow, so agonizingly slow, until he was seated, panting, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air, biting his lip to keep from pulling out and thrusting back again.

“Now,” he said. “Sherlock – the spell.”

Sherlock slowly raised John’s wand, touched the tip of it to his temple, locked eyes with him.

“Legilimens.”

His hand dropped to the bed beside him, loose fingers releasing the wand. He nearly broke eye contact immediately, the desire so strong to close his eyes and _sink swim float_ that only force of will and John’s answering gaze kept them open.

He was wrapped in a world of John. Seeing himself as John saw him, through John’s eyes. Naked, pale, flesh blurring with sheet and pillows and comforter, mass of dark curls, eyes blue grey green intense soft, body lithe and long and god so fucking tight. So beautiful, so right, so brilliant and mine.

_Mine._

He was bathed in John. Mental images nearly supplanting the physical, the slide and press of flesh, the spark of flesh on prostate, the explosion of light and colour and want within him. Layered in need, buoyed by light.

_Look at me._

Wanted to think, to process, analyze, deduce. _Couldn’t_. Extraordinary. To feel sensations not his own, to think thoughts not his own, to see through John’s eyes. 

He was Sherlock, but not himself. 

Loved. Longed for. Admiration adulation adoration. 

Feelings pushed to the surface of John’s mind. Accessible to him. Offered. Open and intoxicating. 

Arousal stirred as John lifted his hips, slid in closer, pushed deeper. Eyes still locked with John’s as John crested, held himself, pulled out and pushed in and spilled and, in the petite mort of orgasm, while Sherlock still held his gaze, there slipped out with the sea-cry of _Sherlock_ , the blanket of love like floating in a quiet bay in the moonlight, a glimpse of fire, a tendril of rage, a spark of pain so bright it nearly ignited him.

Extinguished all in an instant, as John fell against him, spent and boneless. 

But Sherlock had seen.

He held John, felt his heart beat fast against his chest, felt connected to him as he never had. 

Understood, perhaps for the first time, that John’s demons were dragon-fire within him, fueling his love for Sherlock, his lust for danger, his every passion.

They lay there quietly, until John’s heart slowed and he slid his hand into Sherlock’s hair and kissed him again.

“Good?” he asked. “It worked? You saw?”

“Brilliant.” Sherlock ran his hand down John’s back. “Magical.”

John laughed, and found his wand, and cleaned them with a _Scourgify_ and put the candles out with a quick _Nox._

They lay together for five minutes before Sherlock spoke.

“John – you haven’t told me much about your days as an Auror, have you?”

John, spooned against Sherlock’s chest, paused a bit too long before answering.

“No, I haven’t.”

He didn’t offer any more, and they lay together for a long while, John asleep, Sherlock feigning, while the fire died in the fireplace. And Sherlock thought about that fire inside John – the passion, the rage, the pain – and wondered what it meant that he’d found this hidden fire in John just as captivating as the gentle falling rain.


	6. Lavender Foam and Pearly White Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John enjoys the giant bathtub in their new quarters while an impatient Sherlock goes out on his own to explore. Enter Nearly Headless Nick, and Sherlock's scientific mind must deal with thoughts of immortality.

Ghost or no ghost, John was not ready to get out of the bathtub.

Sherlock had taken only a cursory interest in the Hagrid-sized sunken tub with its seven faucets while John, fresh from the best round of wake-up sex he’d had in years, had happily stripped then begun fiddling with the taps.

“Adequate number of no-skid decals on the bottom of the tub, I suppose?” Sherlock asked now as he stood in front of the mirror running his fingers through his damp curls. He’d opted for the shower, apparently suspicious of the coloured foam filling the tub.

“Looking sharp, dear,” said the mirror. “But just a little heavy on the product, don’t you think?”

Sherlock scowled at the mirror. It had been supplying him with a running commentary all morning, and after the first time it spoke – pointing out his less than cheery morning demeanor and his rather unattractive bed head– he’d more or less ignored it, though he did write a crude obscenity – in reverse – with his finger on the steam that had clouded the mirror during his shower.

“What exactly is your hurry?” John asked. “We’ve got four days here still.” He was neck deep in foam – Sherlock couldn’t even tell if he was bathing in any water at all or if the tub was , in fact, _completely_ filled with foam. John looked like a disembodied head floating in a very liquid lavender-tinted cloud.

“John – there is a castle – an entire castle with seven floors and four towers – waiting for us. I could spend the whole morning on this wing alone examining the portraits and paintings without even getting on to the armour.”

“Go then,” John had said. “Go down to the Great Hall and have some breakfast. Oh – I forgot. You don’t eat. Well then, go have some tea – it’s fantastic here – then introduce yourself to a few portraits. Or go talk to the Headmistress about your contract.”

Sherlock’s glare at that remark was barely half-hearted.

“You really are considering it,” John said, grinning. He sank lower in the suds until he had a sudsy lavender beard. “Teaching here for a term.”

“I’m keeping my options open,” Sherlock replied. His mouth quirked as he regarded the beard. “It’s just not your colour,” he said, making a gesture as if to wipe off his own chin.

John laughed and wiped his chin. “Don’t sign anything without me,” he warned. “Magical contracts can be tricky. In fact – you’ll want Mycroft to review it.”

“I’ll get a copy later today and review it,” he said. “And we don’t need Mycroft. No need to tell him.”

John laughed. “Right. Sherlock – he knows. Of _course_ he knows. He’ll be here by noon if he isn’t here already.”

“Oh good – let’s have him sorted too,” suggested Sherlock. “Can the Sorting Hat be bribed? I’d like to see him sorted as Squid food.”

John grinned, thinking to himself that he had to keep Sherlock away from that thestral carcass today. “Right. Go on, then. I’ll meet you in the Great Hall in an hour.” John had slipped underwater then, and Sherlock had been gone when he’d surfaced, so could not appreciate the foamy lavender mustache and lopsided mountain of purple foam on John’s head.

Ten minutes later, he’d warmed up the bath with jets of hot water from the center tap, and had turned an intriguing tap on the end of the tub which emitted a minty oil that floated over the surface, rapidly clearing the bubbles as well as his sinuses. Until the moment he’d seen the tub last night when the two Harry Potter elves had first shown them to their quarters, he hadn’t really internalised just how much _good_ there had been in the magical world he’d given up. It had been so easy to remember the terror, the evil, the grief and for some reason, so easy to forget the rest.

Sherlock’s abrupt reappearance, and consequent demand that he get dressed _now, John!_ did not exactly have John jumping out of the sinfully relaxing bath.

“You saw a ghost? Which one?” he asked. He was sitting on one of the ledges that circled the interior of the tub, enjoying the water jets massaging his back, while Sherlock stood in the bathroom doorway, managing to look both troubled and amazed.

“Tall. Frill around its neck. It spoke to me, John. It greeted me – asked me if I was the new Muggle Studies professor.”

“He. Don’t call them ‘it.’ They don’t like that. And that was Nearly Headless Nick.” He smiled. “He’s the Gryffindor House ghost – rather like a mascot, I guess. I think Gryffindor got the best of the lot when it comes to ghosts.” He moved to the left so the water jet was hitting his lumbar region dead center. “I expect he looks just the same.”

He glanced at Sherlock, looking for a reaction.

“I wouldn’t know, John, would I? I’ve never seen him before.”

“He’s a ghost, Sherlock. A _ghost_. He….” He trailed off, realizing that Sherlock really didn’t understand. “He’s always the same. Always will be. He’s – well, he’s stuck. Between two worlds, I suppose.”

“Between two worlds,” Sherlock repeated. “This world and…?”

John shook his head. “And whatever comes next, or doesn’t come at all. I don’t have evidence, Sherlock. I can’t say one way or the other.”

Sherlock stared at him. “It went through a wall,” he said.

“ _He’s_ a ghost,” John said. “They do that. They’re always showing up where you don’t expect them, too.” He looked at Sherlock, concerned at his posture and the expression on his face, pushed himself up onto the edge of the tub and grabbed a towel. “Hey – Sherlock – you knew there were ghosts here. You read about it. You mentioned it before we came to Hogwarts.”

“I admit it sounded rather impossible – I thought they must be manifestations of the magic of the castle, not actually…well -”

John towel-dried his hair then wrapped the damp towel around his waist. 

“You didn’t think they’d look like _people_?” he asked. “You thought they’d be – well, more ghost-like? Shapeless with big gaping eyes and mouths?”

“No. No – not precisely.” Sherlock looked exceedingly discomfited. John leaned against the tiled wall and regarded his partner. Something was wrong – something was fundamentally off-kilter with Sherlock, more so than he’d seen in the entirety of the year since the Knight Bus had thrown them sideways into this magical parallel universe.

“Nearly Headless Nick lived in the fifteenth century. His name was Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. He was a courtier in Henry VII’s court. Sherlock – he was a real person.”

“Right.” Sherlock clasped his hands together and pressed them against his face, staring at his fingers. “Real – an actual person who actually lived more than five hundred years ago and whose – whose - _ghost_ wanders the halls of Hogwarts.”

“Oh.” _Now_ John understood. “You’re hung up on the idea of an afterlife, the question of souls.”

“Of _course_ I am,” Sherlock answered. “After my initial surprise at finding myself face to face with – what was his name?”

“Sir Nicholas. Just call him Nick.”

“Nick. Right.” Sherlock narrowed his eyes and stared at John’s stomach. “You look like you swam through an oil slick.” 

John looked down. He drew a finger across his belly, studied it, then rubbed the oil into his skin with both hands. “Look, Sherlock – you’re looking at this from a scientific perspective -”

“Of course I am,” said Sherlock. “And according to your friend the Sorting Hat, I should be looking at science through the lens of magic, and not vice-versa.”

“Seems like it’s more your friend than mine,” John teased. “Seeing as it gave _you_ a job.”

“A job offer,” Sherlock corrected. “Professor of a dubious field of study.”

John put out his hand to Sherlock and pulled him to his feet. He put his arms around him and kissed him. Sherlock sighed, and did not relax into his arms. John let go, but leaned in again and kissed him. “Listen, I learned a bit about ghosts here, and even more in Auror school. Ghosts – well, they’re what remains of a person who dies and who isn’t ready to pass on. Wizards who fear death – who can’t or won’t let go of life.”

“Just Wizards?” 

Sherlock wiped suds off his collar as he followed John into the bedroom. “Ghosts are magical, then?” He said it with unmistakable hope in his voice.

John pulled on a pair of pants and sorted through the wardrobe for his trousers. “Your things always take over the entire wardrobe,” he groused, pushing all of Sherlock’s clothes to the left side. 

Sherlock began to rearrange his clothing as soon as John stepped away, pushing John’s few items far to the side. “Ghosts, John?”

“Oh – right.” John stepped into his trousers and fastened the button. “Ghosts are magical in that they’re the magical imprint of a witch or wizard left in the world,” he explained. “But they can’t do magic. They can’t eat or drink or touch or do anything else a human can do except communicate. I think I know where you’re going with this – Muggles can’t become ghosts. Not ghosts like Nick, anyway.”

“So – ghosts prove that there _is_ an afterlife – for witches and wizards.”

“Sherlock –”

Sherlock paced over to the fireplace and stood, back to John, studying the oil painting that covered the wall above the mantel. It depicted the castle grounds and the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Owls occasionally crossed the canvas, and thestrals sometimes took flight over the trees. Sherlock stood there, hands clasped behind his back, white cuffs just showing beyond the jacket sleeve. He didn’t face John when he spoke again. “But you believe. In something…else.”

“I don’t know what I believe,” John said. He pulled on his shirt and started to button it, walking toward Sherlock as he did so. “I used to believe – I think I did….” He trailed off, looking at Sherlock’s back, then lowered his voice. “When I was here I did. It didn’t seem unreasonable then.”

“No, it wouldn’t, would it?” Sherlock said. He turned to face John. “Everything in the magical world is implausible at first, I would guess, until it becomes commonplace.”

John stared at Sherlock a long time. “Some things never become commonplace,” he said, hoping Sherlock understood his meaning. “Come on – let’s go find Nick. I remember that he doesn’t like talking about being a ghost. But I think – for you – he might answer a question or two.” He sat on the bed and pulled on his socks and shoes, then rolled his wand off the bedside table and pocketed it. He eyed Sherlock for a minute, then shook his head and laughed. “I had a sudden urge to see you in teaching robes,” he said.

He took Sherlock’s arm, and pulled him into the corridor. It was empty, but they made their way back the way they’d come the night before, walking past an elaborate tapestry that depicted a fanciful Quidditch match with goblins and house elves on brooms.

The corridor led to a stairway, and John looked around to get his bearings. 

“We’re just above the hospital wing, I think,” he said. He frowned, looked back down the passageway they’d just come from, then across to another corridor. “Or not.”

“Isn’t there some magical way of getting your bearings inside the castle?” Sherlock asked. He was leaning over a rail, looking down to the level below. “Railings are four inches below standard code,” he said, “and the spacing is at least three inches too wide.”

“And the stairs are polished marble with no non-slip treads,” added John. “Sherlock – you’ll make yourself insane if you keep cataloguing safety defects here.”

“Habit,” said Sherlock, shooting John an amused look as he started down the stairs.

John followed him down, then led him to the left when they reached the landing below. He looked down every corridor they crossed, until he saw the pearly white form of a ghost bobbing along a corridor.

“Nick!”

The Gryffindor House ghost had just started to pass through a heavy tapestry when John called. He reappeared a moment later and headed toward them.

“A Gryffindor of old if ever I saw one,” he said pleasantly, then turned to Sherlock “And the new Muggle Studies professor. Welcome – welcome back to Hogwarts, Mr. Watson.” He regarded John with head tipped precariously to the side, then used one hand to push it back in place as it started to wobble.

“Good to see you, too, Nick,” John answered. “And it’s good to be back. How’s Gryffindor been doing in the House Cup race?”

“Sadly, we haven’t won the House Cup in six years,” Nick lamented. “Though the Quidditch Cup has been ours for three years running.”

“Excellent.” John grinned, knowing full well that the Quidditch Cup was the real prize. He put his hand on Sherlock’s arm.

“Nick, this is my partner, Sherlock Holmes – Beauxbatons.”

Nick beamed. “We’ve already been briefed, of course. House elves, ghosts, even Peeves. The Sorting Hat hasn’t tried something like this for more than two centuries.”

“Really?” Sherlock, who had been standing beside John scrutinizing the ghost intently, spoke up. “The Sorting Hat has sorted a professor in the past?”

“1811,” Nick replied. “The Muggle Curiosities Professor had drowned in her bath after falling and striking her head on –”

“See!” Sherlock turned to John and smiled smugly. 

John rolled his eyes. “Muggle Curiosities? Is that what Muggle Studies was called then?”

“Precisely!” Nick said the word as if the entire conversation was some sort of celebration. “Constance Magellen – she really should have cast a no slip spell on her tub, but rumour has it she liked to slide along the bottom on her rather generous derrière – she had the tub angled just a fraction, you see. But – now where was I?” He looked perplexed, and took a moment to pull the lace scruff up around his neck to better hold his head in place.

“The Sorting Hat,” Sherlock said. “The last time a professor was sorted. You were telling us about Professor Magellen and her rather generous derrière.” 

“Oh – right!” Sir Nicholas beamed. “We needed a replacement mid-year, and the Headmaster couldn’t convince anyone to take on the position – there’d been a rather nasty bout of Dragon Pox that year, and you know how debilitating it can be if an adult picks it up.” He looked at them to make sure they were following along. John was giving the telltale signs of understanding and interest, but Sherlock seemed to have fixated on the “Dragon” part of “Dragon Pox.”

“I’ll explain later,” John told him. “Really nasty – smoking pustules.” He turned back to Sir Nicholas. “Of course – go on.”

“That was a Tri-Wizard year, and in a school to school bonding effort, all the potential champions from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, along with their chaperones, were sorted. Imagine our surprise when the Hat sorted one of the Durmstrang chaperones into the Muggle Studies position. Not surprisingly – as I am sure you understand, Mr. Holmes – he was thrilled and honoured. He held the position for forty years.”

“Forty years.” Sherlock smiled tightly. “Amazing.”

“Indeed!” Sir Nicholas exclaimed. “Of course, you’ve only been appointed for the term, as I understand, but I’m quite sure you’ll put your heart and soul into it. And a Beauxbatons boy! It _is_ nice to get new blood at Hogwarts, mix things up a bit, you know. Things have been – well – rather _ordinary_ around here these last years, after all the commotion during You-Know-Who’s reign.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want _ordinary_ ,” Sherlock said. Had anyone else said those words in these circumstances, John would have pegged them as sarcastic, but Sherlock _didn’t_ like ordinary. John was quite sure that, should Sherlock sign the contract, there wouldn’t be a single _ordinary_ lesson.

_Professor Holmes, my mum says that Muggles in London ride inside trains that run in tubes under the ground below the city. Why do they do that?_

_The Underground! Marvelous question! If you were a criminal and wanted to blow up the House of Parliament, you would first have to steal an Underground carriage and fill it with explosives…._

_Professor Holmes, do Muggles bleed when they’re hurt?_

_Do Muggles_ bleed _when they’re hurt? Right. All of you, gather round to look at these crime scene photos…_

“John?”

John started out of his daydream. “Um – sorry. What was that?”

“I asked Sir Nicholas if I could ask him a few questions. He’s invited us to come inside a classroom – apparently doesn’t want to chat in the corridor.” Sherlock pointed to a room ahead of them to the right. 

Sir Nicholas was already inside when John and Sherlock opened the door and entered. Sherlock looked around curiously at the old-fashioned classroom with slate blackboards and side by side student desks. He hit an eraser against the board and coughed at the dust cloud, looking significantly at John.

“Right. Chalk dust. Asthma irritant. Thank God you’re not really writing a report.”

John slid into one of the worn student desks, smiling with nostalgia at the depression in the desktop for the ink bottle. The ghost’s expression had changed to one of reservation – he looked both reluctant and resigned.

“You wish to ask about someone you know who has died – perhaps recently – and why they are not accessible to you as I am. Perhaps a beloved parent or a sibling? I must make this clear – they are not coming back –”

“No – actually, no.” Sherlock leaned against the heavy teacher’s desk. “John has told me that staying – in this realm – becoming a ghost, as you have, is a choice. A choice open only to witches and wizards, not to Muggles, and a choice not many make.”

“He is correct. There are only six resident ghosts at Hogwarts,” Sir Nicholas affirmed, “though thousands who have passed through these walls are dead and gone.”

“Six?” John queried. “There were five when I was here. The four house ghosts, Moaning Myrtle. Who else?”

“Young Colin Creevey,” Sir Nicholas said with a sad smile. “Lost in the Great Battle. A sixth year, I believe. He spends most of his time in the Gryffindor Common Room. We are considering having him forcibly relocated – I am the official Gryffindor House Ghost, of course.”

“I think,” John said, looking at Sherlock significantly, “I think you may want to speak with this Colin.”

He didn’t say _instead of with Sir Nicholas_ , but Sherlock picked up on his intent.

Sir Nicholas went on his way then, cutting directly through the ancient slate blackboard, and Sherlock and John continued their slow walk through the corridors. Sherlock was not in a hurry, and must have pretended not to hear the rumbles from John’s stomach. He stopped to examine tapestries, portraits, suits of armour, mounted maces and swords. At one particularly lethal-looking display, he reached up and easily removed a spear from the gauntleted grasp of a full suit of chain-mail. He touched his finger to the end of it, and held it up for John’s inspection as a drop of blood welled up.

“Honestly,” he said. “Do they even _realise_ what children get up to?”

“Sherlock – you’re forgetting something. These aren’t Muggle children. These are witches and wizards, each of them already equipped with a lethal weapon. It’s called a wand, Sherlock. There’s nothing more dangerous in this castle than the wand in every child’s pocket.”

“Oh horror of horrors it’s Johnny the ex-Auror!” squeaked a high-pitched voice at the same time that two over-filled water balloons crashed down on their heads.

Sherlock, hair dripping, whirled around to watch a little man in an orange bowtie and belled hat shoot off down the corridor over their heads.

“What was that?” he asked, looking down at his tailored jacket sadly, surely thinking it a lost cause.

“That,” said John, wiping water out of his eyes, “was Peeves – the _second_ most dangerous thing in the castle.”

_TBC in Chapter 7 - Mycroft Goes to Hogwarts_


	7. Mycroft Comes to Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft makes his first visit to Hogwarts, encounters a wall full of portraits and, in the end, really does have Sherlock's best interests at heart.

Chapter 7

Drying charms were fine for drying fabric and skin, but not necessarily fine for restoring a dry-cleaned suit to its “prior to being wet” condition, nor for making artfully arranged curls lie perfectly above high cheekbones.

Thus it was that Sherlock was looking a bit less than his usual put-together self when he and John paused at the top of the stairs leading down to the Entrance Hall to find Headmistress McGonagall having a very heated discussion with the Ministry’s Magical-Muggle Liaison.

“Mr. Holmes, really!” exclaimed the Headmistress as John glanced at Sherlock then bit his lip to keep from laughing. “The Sorting Hat is an ancient magical artifact. It played an important part in the Battle of Hogwarts – a hero in its own right. It is neither filthy nor brainless, and if it says that your brother should be the Muggle Studies professor, then the Muggle Studies professor he will be!”

“Not until he signs a contract! So once again, Madam Headmistress, on behalf of my brother who, I repeat, is new to all of this, the contract, please.”

“Mycroft, so nice of you to visit, but really, I haven’t been gone all that long. Did you miss me already?”

Sherlock trotted down the stairs, adjusting the no-longer-crisp collar of his shirt as he moved. “Welcome to Hogwarts – my new home. Oh, haven’t you heard?”

“I’ve heard,” Mycroft answered dryly. “The Ministry is not amused.”

“What’s wrong – worried they won’t have my covert services anymore when there’s a problem in Serbia?”

“There’s always a problem in Serbia, you know,” John said. “Good morning, Headmistress. Is Mycroft giving you trouble?”

“Not that Ministry,” Mycroft stated. “And good morning to you, too, Sherlock, John.”

“Tea,” stated the Headmistress firmly. Very firmly. She sighed and shook her head as Mycroft and Sherlock exchanged a glance – Mycroft’s annoyed and Sherlock’s smug. “Do refrain from killing each other, boys. I swear you’re as bad as the Weasley twins. Follow me, please.”

John watched Mycroft as they headed back up the stairs. His gaze remained determinedly forward. While Sherlock alternatively leaned over the railing and gazed at the ceiling, interrogated portraits and ducked behind a tapestry and came out, covered with dust and cobwebs, on the other side of the passageway, Mycroft kept pace with the Headmistress and kept his eyes forward. 

John could hear snippets of their conversation.

“Standard. A Ministry-provided _standard_ contract….

“He cannot be put in charge of _children_. He forgets to eat for days when he’s on a case. He thinks nothing of experimenting on human body parts….”

“Four months – hardly a blip in a wizard’s life, Mr. Holmes….”

“But Headmistress – the _children_! What if he recruits them…?”

The moving spiral staircase was a surprise.

It did Sherlock in, as he kept walking backwards while he tried to determine how it worked, and by the time he made it to the door into the Headmistress’ office, Mycroft and John were already sitting and having their tea, and Mycroft was examining the contract.

“There he is!”

Sherlock, who had taken only a single step into the room, stopped in his tracks and stared at the wall.

Dozens of portraits were gazing at him, some of them talking – addressing him directly, others applauding. Mycroft looked up from the contract to stare at the wall, and John swiveled his head from Sherlock to the portraits, letting his tea grow cold.

“Oh, he’s a looker! He’ll give old Gilderoy a run for his money, won’t he?”

“Can you imagine the figure he’ll cut in robes?”

“But is he qualified?”

“Qualified? Have you seen his CV?”

“Do tell – Professor Holmes – what is your opinion on the Statute of Secrecy?”

“Oh, is it a Q&A? Excellent. Do you believe in corporal punishment for wayward students or do you prefer magical means of inflicting pain upon their persons?”

Sherlock remained in the same spot, one step inside the door, turning his head from one portrait to another, trying to keep up with the questions and catalogue replies, even though he was never given an opportunity to actually speak. The Headmistress, her back to the wall and facing him, gave him a falsely sweet smile and relaxed in her chair, sipping her tea. 

“We are told,” said a sinuous voice, low yet strong, “that you hold a university degree in Chemistry.” The noise from the other portraits died down almost immediately and all heads turned to the portrait that had appeared beside Headmaster Dumbledore soon after the Final Battle. Even Headmistress McGonagall seemed startled. She nearly banged her teacup down and swiveled on her chair to face the wall.

“Severus!” she exclaimed. “We – we thought you couldn’t talk – that you hadn’t been animated correctly.” She stood, ignoring her guests. “This – this is an unexpected, and most welcome, surprise.”

“Not so, Headmistress,” the portrait said, in a tone of voice that was somewhere between haughty and pleased. “I’ve simply had nothing to say until now.”

Mycroft’s mouth was hanging open, making him look like a prudish fish. He looked flustered, and pleased, and decidedly not at all like the Mycroft Holmes John thought he knew.

Sherlock shook himself from his inertia and stepped forward, eyes locked on Headmaster Snape.

“Yes,” he said, “though I also enjoy microbiology, botany, human anatomy and physiology, physics, genetics and scientific experimentation of all kinds.”

“Muggle pursuits,” the former Headmaster sneered. 

“Making me uniquely qualified to teach _Muggle_ Studies,” Sherlock retorted. “I’m also familiar with a wide variety of Muggle technologies, and have the distinct misfortune of sharing parents with the current Magical-Muggle Liaison.”

Snape turned his painted head and focused his gaze on Mycroft.

“Please excuse my brother, Headmaster,” Mycroft said in his best Ministry voice. “He’s recently returned to the magical world….”

“Thank you,” said Snape, cutting off Mycroft and turning back to Sherlock. John, despite being a Gryffindor through and through, had always harboured a respectful fear of the Potions professor, and seemed happy enough to fade into the background and escape Snape’s notice. There was just something about being at Hogwarts that made him feel sixteen again. However, Snape cutting off Mycroft was probably the single best thing that had happened since they arrived at Hogwarts, even considering the sinful four poster and the sunken bathtub.

“I had hoped you might have aspirations beyond the Muggle Studies position – important as that may be.” Knowing Snape, John assumed he was being sarcastic, but as nearly everything that came out of his mouth seemed tinged with sarcasm, it was difficult to tell. “Our current Potions professor has been extremely accommodating, and has stayed at Hogwarts well beyond his…prime.”

“He means ‘usefulness,’ of course,” piped in a nasally voice from another portrait. “Horace Slughorn had already retired when Albus Dumbledore coerced him to return to Hogwarts in 1997.”

“Coerced is rather a strong word, don’t you think, Phineas?” A new voice spoke, from the largest portrait of all. John swung his head around. It was, of course, Dumbledore. “Those were difficult times, and Horace was needed.”

“Horace has made his intention to retire at year’s end clear,” Minerva interjected calmly. “Severus, Mr. Holmes is likely not the best candidate to replace him. He…well, he removed himself from the magical world some years ago by self-Obliviating. While he may hold a university degree, his knowledge of potions is, regretfully, lost.”

John could see the immediate interest on both Snape and Dumbledore’s faces.

“But muscle memory is seldom lost with Obliviation or amnesia,” Snape mused.

“The memory of the knowledge is gone, but not the knowledge itself,” Dumbledore added. He lowered his half-moon spectacles and looked over the tops of them out at Sherlock.

“And if he was successful at self-Obliviation and is still functional –”

“Oh, he _looks_ functional,” added a painted headmaster with a frilled Elizabethan collar and a powdered wig. 

“Then he must have been skilled with mind magic,” Snape finished, scowling at his frilled colleague.

“Oh, he was. Very much so.” Mycroft stood and walked over to stand beside his brother, facing the portraits. “He turned down a Potions apprenticeship when the magical world was becoming too much for his very scientific mind. And while I have every confidence that he could quickly regain lost ground in Potions, he is uniquely _unqualified_ to be a professor. First of all, he knows nothing - _nothing_ \- about children.”

John and the headmistress exchanged a smile. 

Snape quirked an eyebrow. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled.

“Secondly, he doesn’t even _like_ children. Or adolescents. Or teenagers. In fact, he doesn’t like people at all.”

“He likes me,” John volunteered.

Mycroft glared at him.

Now, Dumbledore and McGonagall eyed each other. The headmistress smirked. Mycroft, however, oblivious to the undercurrent and having never encountered Snape in corporal form, steamrolled ahead.

“He’s not an educator. He’s no experience in the classroom, has never made a lesson plan or a syllabus, and often forgets to eat and sleep.”

“He’s perfect,” drawled Snape.

“He’s dangerous! He chases criminals for a living!”

“He’d have been helpful during my tenure here, then.”

“He was brought to Hogwarts to perform a safety inspection, not to be drafted as a fill-in professor.”

“Safety inspection?” Now Dumbledore was addressing Mycroft, both white eyebrows raised to alarming heights. “Really?”

“Yes. Of course. And a curriculum review.”

“No need of any of that now, is there?” asked Sherlock. “Considering you can tell the minister that I’ll be on site and will oversee his daughter’s safety – along with my partner, who happens to be a retired magical law enforcement officer and a licensed Muggle physician.”

“This is ludicrous – Sherlock – this is too much for you. Too much too soon. You’ve only been back in this world a year. And John can’t stay here with you and protect the child – he has a job in London.”

“John and I have discussed this. I can do this. I want to do this. And I don’t hate children.” He glowered at Mycroft. “And we like the bed.”

“It’s an extremely nice bed,” John confirmed. 

“You’re a recovering addict.” Mycroft was bringing out the big guns now. John frowned.

“Aren’t we all,” said Minerva.

“Where do I sign?”

Sherlock strode toward the desk where Mycroft had dropped the contract. He unrolled it quickly, slid an ink bottle over to weigh it down, and picked up a quill.

“Sherlock – please! Do you really think that’s wise?”

Sherlock signed his name with a flourish. John noted that he dipped the quill into the ink to exactly the right depth, and signed his name expertly with the unfamiliar instrument.

As soon as he signed and dated the contract, it rolled up, duplicated itself and popped away. The duplicate fell to the desk and rolled to the center.

“Well, that’s that, then,” said the headmistress. She smiled brightly and stood. “I think we should have a tour, gentlemen, top to bottom.” She glanced at the portraits of the two most recent headmasters. “We’ll start with the Astronomy Tower, I think. Always a lot of action up there. Come now.”

John looked at the contract on the desk.

“You’d probably better grab that,” he said to Sherlock. “You might want to actually read it tonight.”

Sherlock tucked the contract in his pocket as John grabbed his hand. “Come on professor- wouldn’t want to let Mycroft get too far ahead of us, would we? The headmistress might get fed up with him and push him off the Astronomy Tower.”

Sherlock looked intrigued. “I’m assuming the tower violates all the accepted safety standards?”

“Absolutely,” John replied. “Rails are about thigh-high and it’s easily a one hundred foot drop. It’s the favorite make-out spot in the castle.”

“So,” Sherlock said as they walked together out of the headmistress’ office and took the spiral staircase down, “hormone-addled adolescents sneak up to the dark, unsafe Astronomy tower at night to snog?”

“Right. And on clear nights, they can see Uranus.”

“Pathetic, John.”

John wrapped his arm around Sherlock’s waist as they walked down the corridor. Ahead of them, Minerva and Mycroft turned a corner. They could hear Mycroft’s voice still, assuring her that the Ministry would find a replacement for Sherlock, that the Board of Governors would surely nullify the contract at their next meeting.

ooOoo

The Headmistress gave a very thorough tour, and unfortunately pointed out the corridor which provided access to the Room of Requirement. John tried to confuse Sherlock as they left, distracting him with a hand on his arse and some well-aimed insults at Mycroft, though really, it was a lost cause. Sherlock’s brain would never let go of that particular location now that he’d seen it.

The headmistress left them in the front courtyard, and as soon as she’d disappeared inside the castle, Mycroft and Sherlock turned on each other, forcing John to insinuate himself directly between them, back to Sherlock, facing Mycroft, wand drawn.

“I suppose being at Hogwarts brings out the adolescent in both of you,” he said. 

“Says the man that made a joke about Uranus,” muttered Sherlock.

John glared him into silence. “But the contract is signed and it looks like Sherlock is doing this. So, instead of listing all the many reasons this is a bad idea, Mycroft, maybe you could start helping your brother. Maybe immersing himself here for four months will be a good thing.”

Mycroft, looking positively irate, glared at John.

“You didn’t know him then, John. I knew him. I cared for him. I saw him at his most desperate.” He turned to Sherlock. “You are acting like a child, Sherlock, rash and foolish, distracted by the lights and colours. You are not yet equipped to handle a magical immersion of this extent. A week here – yes. I viewed it as somewhat of a vacation for you, a brief foray deeper into the magical world. But to be here for four months – with no modern Muggle technology, mind you – I’m not convinced you can do it. It could break you Sherlock – and I’m not only talking about being unable to use your mobile to communicate.”

“I’ll hardly get bored here, Mycroft, with or without my mobile.”

“Or your laptop, or your tablet, or the internet. No electricity, in fact. No cabs, no restaurants, no nicotine patches, no Bart’s with its handy collection of corpses.”

“Nicotine patches will work here – won’t they, John?”

“You are missing the point, Sherlock.”

Sherlock straightened. He pulled the cuffs of his shirt down one at a time, then faced his brother again.

“This morning, Mycroft, I met a ghost. The ghost has a name. He was a courtier in the court of Henry VII. I have accepted the fact that a witch or wizard can die yet leave something – some part of his or her essence behind. Perhaps it is a soul, perhaps it is not. But nevertheless, it has made me question everything I know to be true from a scientific perspective regarding life and death. There is life, and there is death, and there is nothing in between. Nothing before, nothing after. Except - well, except there is.”

Mycroft glanced at John. John stared back at him.

“I wondered if you’d encounter a ghost here. You have before – you know. We had two resident ghosts at Beauxbatons. They were not friendly, however – not social, at least. They didn’t approach us, or speak to us.”

“I can handle this, Mycroft. I must.” He looked up at the façade of the castle, stretching up to nearly dizzying heights. “We’ll simply tell our friends that I’ve taken a temporary post at a boarding school in Scotland, the school our mother attended. I’ll be filling in for an old friend of hers as a favour to her. They’ll all naturally assume I’m in rehab.”

John, standing beside Sherlock, snorted.

“Naturally,” agreed Mycroft. “And where will John fit in this little charade?” 

“I’ll stay here with Sherlock, Floo to the flat on work days, and go about my business as usual.”

“And Mrs. Hudson? She won’t find it odd at all that you come without going and go without coming?”

John and Sherlock exchanged a look, communicating their agreement that Mrs. Hudson would indeed find that odd, and would definitely notice.

“I’ll stay with my sister while Sherlock’s gone – we’ll say she’s ill. I’ll stop by 221B a couple times a week to check on things.

“Connecting a home in Muggle London to Hogwarts via the Floo network will require paperwork.” Mycroft’s voice was dismissive. Apparently, paperwork was not an option.

“We need the Floo. We’ll hardly be able to get the students to London and back in a single day on the Hogwarts Express for Muggle Studies field trips,” Sherlock stated. John whipped his head around to stare at Sherlock. Neither he nor Mycroft could tell if Sherlock was serious or just trying to give Mycroft a coronary. 

“I’m not chaperoning,” John said, grinning.

“Nor I,” added Mycroft. He seemed to be growing tired of the game. “John, you can jog down past the gates every morning and Apparate into London.” He poked John in the side with the tip of his umbrella. “The exercise will do you good. You’ve put on half a stone this last year since you’ve started relying on magic to fetch things from the kitchen.”

“Four pounds,” John corrected.

“Four and a half, and you do overuse _Accio_ ,” Sherlock added.

“Says the man whose head I stitched up after he cut it open with a flying beer bottle.” John gave Mycroft a withering glance, but sucked in his gut nonetheless.

Mycroft sighed. He stared at his brother a long moment, a look in his eyes that went beyond exasperation and reached back to the edge of something else – fondness, filial love, legitimate concern.

“Read the contract, Sherlock. Thoroughly.” He held Sherlock’s eyes as Sherlock frowned, then jerked his head in a nod.

“You’ll want to avoid Gladrags in Hogsmeade. Go directly to the Malfoy establishment in Diagon Alley. They’ll have what you want – believe me, no one else can measure up to your exacting standards.”

“The Malfoys have an establishment in _Diagon Alley_? The _Malfoys_?

“They have had to reinvent themselves,” Mycroft replied. “High-end Wizarding fashion – with quite a bit borrowed from Muggle runways, I might add.”

John rolled his eyes. “He’s going to love this, you know.”

“That Belstaff is practically a robe already.” Mycroft reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped a few beads of perspiration off his forehead. “Pity he can’t wear it year-round.”

And with that, Mycroft took his leave, opting to walk down the lane to the gates to Apparate back to London. Sherlock stood on the castle stairs, hands clasped behind his back, watching him until he was out of sight.

“Unfaithful,” he muttered.

“Mycroft?” John said. “Why would you say that?”

“No – Malfoy. Bad faith – unfaithful – in French. What do you know about this family?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” John replied. He took Sherlock by the hand. “Let’s walk down to the lake – I’ll tell you about them on the way.”

They headed toward the lakeshore, toward the tomb of Albus Dumbledore and the little cemetery that lay off to the side. John wondered who he’d find in this final resting place of so many who’d died during the Final Battle.

Frankly, he really didn’t want to know.


	8. Voices From the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John visits the castle cemetery and finds someone he didn't expect, and Sherlock has a chat with Colin Creevey's ghost.

Chapter 8

“They’re just tombs, John. Memorial markers for the living. They’re not here.” Sherlock’s voice, from behind him, where he stood just outside the wrought iron fence, was quiet, reassuring. John smiled. Such a change in Sherlock this past year. Unbelievable.

“And you weren’t in yours either and I talked to you there,” John answered, turning away from the tomb in the small cemetery on the hillside.

Sherlock had given John time and space to read the names of the fallen and come to terms with the deaths of friends and colleagues. But he walked up to him now, as John had paused in front of the largest tomb on the hill, and had been standing there, unmoving, for some time now.

“Remus John Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin.” Sherlock read the names aloud, voice low. “Remus Lupin. Really?” He turned to John. “Remus for a man whose last name is Lupin?”

“Oh, it’s better than that. He was a werewolf, actually,” John replied. “Bitten when he was a child. Attended Hogwarts only because Albus Dumbledore made special arrangements for him – he’d have been ostracised otherwise.” He glanced back at Sherlock. “You’re read about lycanthropes? I know the Granger book discussed them.”

Sherlock nodded absently. That particular aspect of the magical world was something he hadn’t quite internalised yet. He shook his head then, and stared at the tomb. “I’d say that this is the most unbelievable coincidence I’ve ever encountered-”

“ _If_ you believed in coincidence,” John finished. He stood looking at the inscription a moment longer, then sighed. “I’d hate to think that his parents were asking for this when they named their child Remus.”

Sherlock crouched and looked more closely at the inscription. 

“Nymphadora is no less a suggestive name than Remus.” He stood again, but didn’t look over at John. “Was she your friend, then? Or something more?”

John’s smile was a sad one. “My friend, yes. Something more – no. She was an Auror, my mentor in the Corp. We all admired her – she was spot-on fabulous in every way. I – well, I can’t believe she was here at Hogwarts for the Battle. Her husband was close to Potter, though. A good friend of his dad’s. I heard she and Remus had a baby just a couple months before it all ended.”

He wondered absently what had happened to that child.

Sherlock looked up at the castle. “You weren’t here at Hogwarts? When Voldemort was killed?”

In the year since Sherlock had crouched over John’s crumpled body in that alleyway and taken the strange stick from his hands, he hadn’t once asked John about his life as an Auror, or his role in the War, or about why he had left it all behind. John had, on several occasions, with a pint or two to loosen his tongue, spoken of the war obliquely, and of his past life as an Auror. He’d joined up as soon as he’d left Hogwarts, and by the time he was twenty was a Junior Auror. The next few years were the years of Voldemort’s return and rise to power. 

And, according to Mycroft, of his family’s torture by Death Eaters. His parents’ murders.

“I spent that last year – the year Voldemort held the Ministry – with a rogue group of Aurors, fighting against the Ministry instead of for it. Shacklebolt – he was our leader back then – sent some of us to secure key strategic locations. I had St. Mungo’s – he knew we’d need the hospital operational and out of Voldemort’s control . That’s where they took Voldemort’s body though, after it was all over. That’s how I knew he was really dead. Saw the bugger's rotten corpse myself.”

It was the last significant memory of his early life as a wizard. They’d brought his body back from Hogwarts – Kingsley himself has accompanied it – and the Wizarding healers had declared him well and truly dead.

And the celebrations, already in full swing at Hogwarts and in Hogsmeade, had begun even at St. Mungo’s.

John had stood against the wall as the healers scanned Voldemort’s corpse, then had shrugged out of his scarlet robes, draped them over a chair in a visitor lounge, and walked out the front door of the hospital.

He didn’t have Muggle money with him, so he walked two hours to get back to his flat.

A restaurant job saw him through the summer, and he was in Uni in September.

Reinventing himself. Picked up by a military recruiter before he was out of med school. 

Finishing. Basic training. Deployment with a medical regiment to a field hospital in Afghanistan.

Not looking back.

War all over again.

“I told Charlie not to tell me – who had died, who had lived. He met me at a pub in London two weeks after I left. I gave him my wand for safe-keeping. Didn’t contact him again until I moved in with you.”

“Charlie is Ron Weasley’s brother.” 

“One of them , yes.”

“Speaking of Weasley – haven’t seen him yet today.”

“Right.” John looked back at the castle. “You ready for a visit to Gryffindor Tower, then? To talk to the new resident ghost there? Ron will know him – they were in Gryffindor together, I’m sure.”

“Lead the way,” Sherlock said. “And do make a note that there are no warning signs near the lake advising students not to swim alone.”

“I don’t have enough paper to note all the safety violations here,” John said. “Put it away somewhere in that mind palace of yours. We’ll save a few trees that way.”

Sherlock grinned, and John took his arm, and together they walked back up to the castle to find Ron.

ooOoo

“No – really. I mean it. You do not want to talk to Colin Creevey.”

“We are not planning to speak with Colin Creevey,” Sherlock pointed out. He was sitting beside John at the head of the Gryffindor house table in the Great Hall, directly across from the Auror. “We are hoping to speak with his ghost.”

“Colin _is_ his ghost. Or his ghost is Colin. It’s all the same. He was annoying as hell when he was alive and from what Teddy says, he’s worse dead.”

“Teddy?” John asked.

“Teddy Lupin – Harry’s godson. Spends a lot of time around the Burrow falling all over himself in front of my niece Victoire. Anyway, he’s here now, in Gryffindor. Well, not _now_ ….”

“Right.” They watched Ron take another sandwich from the serving plate and start in on it. Sherlock had eaten three grapes. The chicken thigh he’d reluctantly scooted onto his plate remained untouched.

“So – Colin Creevey,” John said, pushing the bowl of chips closer to Ron. “Sherlock is interested in the metaphysical - ” 

Ron frowned.

“Right – sorry. Not a phrase used around the castle much.” He pressed his thigh against Sherlock’s to prevent him from making a derogatory comment. “He’s interested in what happens after death. Muggles don’t have ghosts – and he’d like to talk with Colin since he’s the youngest ghost here.”

Ron swallowed then took a long drink of pumpkin juice.

“Colin wasn’t supposed to even be here, you know,” he said. “He was Muggle-born. The Ministry took his wand. But he had his DA coin, and he somehow got to Hogsmeade and into the castle when the call went out to the Army.” He paused, looking at his plate. Rather impossibly, the new topic seemed to have put him off food for the moment. “The kid didn’t even have his wand,” he said, shaking his head. “But he had that damn camera.” He sighed and broke a chip in half, but didn’t eat it. “He was still clutching that camera when they brought his body in. Hermione developed the photos later that summer. Best he ever took, I think. Most of us can’t bear to see them, of course.”

“So – we’ll find him in Gryffindor Tower, then?” John asked.

“Sure. If he’s anywhere else, he’ll zip back there as soon as he realises there’s someone there to talk to.” He dipped both halves of the chip into mayonnaise and popped them in his mouth. “So – word about the castle is that you signed the contract, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked up from his plate. He had been dissecting a grape, and had successfully removed the skin and was working on digging out the seeds. 

“Yes, I signed it. First thing this morning. Well, second thing. First thing was a run-in with Nearly Headless Nick, then an unpleasant encounter with my brother.”

Ron grinned. “He’s the official Gryffindor House ghost. Nick, I mean - not your brother. I hear he’s not too happy with Colin.”

“We had a hit and run with Peeves, too,” John added. “Water balloons.”

“Not very original, but always effective,” said Ron. “You’d think he’d get tired of it.”

“You’d think he’d run out of balloons,” John said.

“Well, we’re off then,” Sherlock said, abandoning his plate and standing up. “Gryffindor Tower to meet Mr. Creevey.”

As John and Sherlock walked out of the Hall, Ron dipped a chip and popped it into his mouth.

“Wonder if I should have warned them about his obsession with Harry?” he mused.

ooOoo

“No elevators,” Sherlock said, trudging up the fifth flight of stairs behind John. “Surely that’s a violation of some kind.”

“Put it in your report,” John said, turning at the landing and starting up the next flight. They’d already encountered a rogue moving stairway that had deposited them on the opposite wing, and they’d had to backtrack down two flights and then through a secret corridor to get back to their starting point.

Not that Sherlock wasn’t delighted by the secret corridor, or by the trick stair on the hidden stairway. 

John, who had been leading, and who _should_ have remembered, miscalculated and jumped over the wrong stair. Sherlock, barreling after him in a fair imitation of their London alleyway chases, tripped over him and grabbed onto the railing to keep from tumbling to the bottom. He’d had to pull John out by the armpits, as John grumbled and said, “This one is going on the report for sure.”

“Report? What report?” Sherlock said, taking off ahead of John this time.

Finally, they made it up to the seventh floor, and John led the way toward the Gryffindor Common Room.

The portrait swung open as they approached.

“Come in, come in, visitors always welcome when the children are gone,” sang out the Fat Lady. “No passwords in the summer time.”

Sherlock halted, surprised.

“The common rooms are password-protected?” he asked, stepping back and addressing the Fat Lady.

“Of course, of course.” The Fat Lady seemed to be speaking in echo today. 

“Why?” he asked. “Why do you need a password to get in?”

“You don’t, you don’t,” she answered. “Not today anyway! Go in and have a look, Professor Holmes. I dare say they were right about you down in the Headmistress’ office. Quite a looker you are.”

Sherlock ignored the comment about his appearance while John smirked. “I don’t understand. Anyone can walk in through the front door of the castle and pass the Great Hall and any number of classrooms and offices but once they get here they need a password?”

“Actually, it’s to keep the houses separate,” John explained. “Prevent practical jokes, spying for Quidditch secrets….”

“And what’s to prevent a Gryffindor from giving the password to a Slytherin, then?”

Both John and the Fat Lady laughed.

“Alright – what’s to prevent a Slytherin from hiding out behind a tapestry until he overheard the password?”

“Why would a Slytherin be in the Gryffindor corridor?” asked the Fat Lady.

“Fine. A Hufflepuff.”

“You know,” John said, looking a bit confused. “I don’t even know where the Hufflepuff Common Room is. Somewhere near the kitchens, I think.”

“The Ravenclaw Common Room is protected by a different sort of charm,” offered the Fat Lady, who was obviously feeling overly communicative and possibly lonely this late in the summer. “One has to answer a question to gain entrance – a riddle, you might say. Difficult – very difficult.”

“Thank you – nice seeing you and all.” John was stepping through the portrait hole as he spoke. “This was easier when I was twenty years younger,” he said.

The Gryffindor Common Room hadn’t changed much in the twenty years he’d been gone. In fact, John would be willing to bet that the squashy sofas and armchairs were the same ones that had been here all those years ago. He plopped into one now and slung his arms out over the cushioned arm rests.

“Quaint,” Sherlock said, lowering himself into a chair opposite John.

“It actually looks quite a bit like 221B when the kids are here,” John said. “Clutter everywhere. Looks like a war zone.”

“221B doesn’t have quite so much _squish_.”

“No. It doesn’t.” John closed his eyes and sighed. “Good thing, really. At our age, we’d never get out of the chairs.”

“Speak for yourself, old …” Sherlock began. But his voice trailed off as his eyes caught movement near one of the stairways leading off the room. “Hello.”

John whirled his head around, then rose from the chair. “Hello. We hoped you might be here.”

The pearl-white figure of a teenaged boy was hovering above the lowest landing. John could see that the boy was small for his age. He was wearing Muggle clothing – jeans and a jumper – and had an old-fashioned professional grade camera strapped around his neck. 

“You’re the new Muggle Studies professor.” The ghost quickly halved the distance between them. “You’re Sherlock Holmes. I’ve read about you, you know. You – you’re a wizard!”

He came even closer, ignoring John altogether. 

“You’re the detective. You’ve been in all the Muggle papers.”

“How’ve you seen them?” John asked. “I mean – here at Hogwarts. Who reads Muggle papers here?”

“The Muggle Studies professor,” Colin answered. “Of course, I can only read the front page, or whatever page she leaves open. She doesn’t much like me looking over her shoulder so I visit her classroom after hours.”

“Right. Um – Colin – it might be good to keep that bit to yourself. About Sherlock’s Muggle career, I mean.”

“Oh, everyone will know! I mean, all the Muggle-borns, anyway. Won’t they? Well, perhaps not. The younger ones don’t read the papers, but their parents will know. My parents would, you know. They’re Muggles. And they’d know you too – you’re in the papers too, you know. John Watson. Dr. John Watson.”

Sherlock had yet to utter a word. He was watching the interchange, mildly fascinated.

“Actually, Colin, Sherlock wanted to come here to meet you. He’s interested in … ghosts.”

“I’ll be introducing a new section in my classes this year on Muggle concepts of death and afterlife,” Sherlock ad-libbed. “I’m actually hoping you might agree to participate.” He was smiling amiably at the boy. 

“I can tell you about death,” Colin said, his demeanor quickly changing from excited to reserved. “But not about the afterlife. I’m stuck here- probably forever. Poor Nick’s been here five hundred years, and the Grey Lady a thousand.” He sighed, and sank onto the floor, sitting cross-legged and hovering a few inches above the carpet. “No one ever asks me about it, you know,” he added. “About how I died.”

“Perhaps they’re being sensitive,” John suggested mildly. He glanced at Sherlock. There was certainly no danger of _Sherlock_ being sensitive. “Perhaps they think you won’t want to relive it.”

“I tell them anyway,” Colin stated. “There’s not much else about me that’s interesting. I’m not covered with blood like the Bloody Baron, and my head’s loose but still fully attached, and I’m not all scary and broody like the Grey Lady. I’m just a kid who loved Hogwarts so much I never wanted to leave it.”

“Tell me,” Sherlock said. He leaned forward a bit. “How did it happen?”

Colin nearly beamed. “I didn’t have a wand, you know. The Ministry took it – and my brother’s too – and we had to go into hiding because we couldn’t prove any Wizarding ancestry. But I still had my DA coin – Dumbledore’s Army. Harry started it during my fourth year – Harry Potter.” He looked at them to make sure they understood that he was a personal friend of the Boy Who Lived. “When they called for help during the Final Battle, I came with my camera. Since I couldn’t fight with magic, I tried to stay out of the way and photograph the Battle. It was horrible.” He shuddered, as only a ghost could truly shudder, John thought. “Voldemort had the Giants on his side, and one of them saw me when I was trying to take a picture of the castle. It picked me up by my head, just pinched it right between its two fingers. Shook me about a bit.” 

He demonstrated by swiveling his head like an owl, then bending his neck sideways so that his head rested on one shoulder, then reversed the motion so that it rested on the other.

The doctor inside John winced. 

“Ouch,” muttered Sherlock.

“And that’s when it happened,” Colin said. “The part that no one wants to hear about.”

Personally, John hadn’t really wanted to hear the part about the Giant pinching the boy’s head either.

“Everything was starting to turn grey,” Colin said, scooting across the air to sit closer to John and Sherlock. “Everything around the edges, anyway. I was lying on my back, I think, next to the castle wall, and even the noise of the battle sounded far away, even though I was still right in the middle of it. And I remember hearing voices – voices I didn’t know, but beautiful voices, voices I was supposed to _trust_. They were all speaking to me, and telling me to close my eyes and rise up with them. But – that’s the problem, see? They wanted me to leave Hogwarts, and I knew – I just knew I had to stay and help Harry.” He paused again. “Harry Potter, right?” he said, his voice both eager and desperate. “He was at Hogwarts – I saw him. He’d been gone but he’d come back and it was going to be the night he ended it all, right? So I had to help him. He was counting on me, wasn’t he? We were both Gryffindors, and I was in the DA, and I had to – I just had to….”

“I’m quite sure Mr. Potter would have found your help indispensable,” Sherlock assured the child-ghost.

“Right.” Colin sighed. “I decided to stay, and I opened my eyes, and the voices went away, and I never heard them again.”

“Would you mind,” Sherlock asked, fixing his full attention on the ghost, “would you mind if I asked you a few more questions?”

“Oh, please do,” replied Colin, beaming at Sherlock again. “Is this an investigation?”

“Quite,” said Sherlock.

“And will you be blogging about it?” asked Collin, swiveling his head around unnaturally to face John.

“Um – right. Sure. Yes. I’ll blog all about it. Wait – how do you know about my blog?”

“Please, John, it’s in the papers.”

“They call you his Blogger,” Colin supplied happily. He lowered his voice. “But they don’t think you’re all that good.”

“I’d like to know – if you wouldn’t mind sharing – about the voices you heard. What do you think would have happened if you’ listened to them? If you’d closed your eyes, like they wanted, and risen up with them?”

“I’d have passed on,” Colin said. “I’d not be stuck here.”

“Where would you be, then?” Sherlock continued. He was directing at Colin all the intensity of his eyes, all of his focus. “If not here- then where?”

“I don’t know,” Colin said, after a moment of quiet thought. He stared at Sherlock with ghost-white eyes. “But I wasn’t afraid of it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I hardly even remember the pain – that was the most forgettable part of all. And the voices didn’t scare me. I – I just couldn’t leave the Battle half-finished. Not after the year I’d had. I was finally back at Hogwarts - _finally_ \- and I just couldn’t leave.”

“So considering your love of Hogwarts – wouldn’t you consider this heaven? An eternity spent in the place you love most in the world?”

The young ghost shook his head. His neck bent unnaturally, and he smiled enigmatically.

“No.” He was quite definitive. “Because I’m attached to this life but not part of it. It starts out new each year, and the first years come in, and by the end of the year, they’ve grown a bit, and they keep growing, and having adventures, and learning and making friends and I stay exactly where I am and what I am. It’s rather depressing, and maddening, and I think it’s why the older ghosts go mad or barmy.”

“And these voices – what do you think about the voices you heard?” 

Colin smiled, shrugged. “It was like there was a party going on without me – and I was invited and running late and they were waiting for me. And it seemed so easy – to just close my eyes and _go_. Like I was learning to swim – and my da was there in the water right in front of me and I just had to let go, because I always trusted him, and I knew he’d have me. And the water was perfect….” He shook his wobbly head again. “But I couldn’t let Harry down, you know, Harry and all the others. And Hogwarts.”

Sherlock leaned back in his squashy chair, steepling his fingers before his lips.

“You felt you would just have to close your eyes and you’d go – to this party. Your choices were to go, or to stay. But to go where?”

Colin looked down at the camera in his hands. 

“Somewhere,” he said when he looked up. “Somewhere else.”

_TBC_


	9. Expecto Patronum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock wonders how he'll communicate with John in an emergency while he's at Hogwarts and John is off to work in London. So John explains various means of magical communication, and teaches Sherlock a new charm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an idea that many people will have many opinions about Sherlock, John and Mycroft's Patronuses. I am relatively certain that I've chosen some original forms for the boys. All three have pertinent characteristics that make them fitting, though I know there are many others that do as well. Hope you enjoy nonetheless.
> 
> This story will end with Sherlock's first day teaching. At that time, I'll see if there's enough interest for a sequel (and if I have it in me. I have a Big Bang story in the HP fandom to finish still. <3

**Chapter 9**

“Because we have a thousand things to take care of before term starts. Because you need to buy robes and supplies. Because you’ve got to get back here early and work on your lesson plans and meet the other professors.”

John was ticking off reasons on his fingers but was having no luck convincing Sherlock that they should leave for London in the morning.

“We’ve only been here a day,” Sherlock pointed out. “We were scheduled to stay until Friday and it’s only Tuesday.”

“You were supposed to be doing a _safety assessment_ of Hogwarts,” John replied. “It was supposed to take four days. That’s the only reason we were going to be here so long. But within the first few hours, you’d successfully passed that responsibility off to the Headmistress.”

“But we still have three nights,” Sherlock reasoned. “I haven’t seen the library yet, or ridden a broom, or gone to the Room of Requirement, or explored the Forbidden Forest.”

“You’re forgetting that you’ve signed a contract to teach here for an entire term,” John reminded him. “You can do all of those things when term starts. Right now, we should get back to London and start getting things ready. For starters, we have to come up with a believable cover story for why you’re gone for four months. I like the idea of saying you’ve taken a temporary position at your mother’s old boarding school, but we have to get our facts checked and our stories straight.”

“Mycroft will take care of that,” Sherlock said. “I’m sure he’s already working on it, in fact. I’m surprised we haven’t heard from him.”

They’d returned to their rooms an hour ago after the rather sobering and confusing conversation with Colin Creevey’s ghost. Sherlock had been uncharacteristically quiet ever since, and John wondered if this whole thing had been a bad idea. Sherlock had been doing so well with slowly integrating magic into his life without needing a scientific explanation for every new phenomenon he experienced. But until they had come here – to Hogwarts – he’d been able to deal with every new magical phenomena in a very Muggle setting. There were no moving staircases in 221B, no talking portraits, no house elves, and definitely no poltergeists or ghosts. And, mercifully, no discussion of the afterlife, or of souls. 

“It’s only been a few hours since Mycroft left,” John said.

Sherlock shrugged. “Time enough for Mycroft.” He frowned into his teacup – John had found the cupboards well-stocked and had made tea the non-magical way while Sherlock changed into something not previously saturated by Peeves’ water balloons. “John – how would I contact you quickly while I’m here and you’re not? Or Mycroft, for that matter – or anyone outside of Hogwarts?” He glanced up sadly at the mantel, where he and John had left their mobiles. “Please don’t tell me I have to send a note by owl or stick my head in the fireplace?” 

“An owl is too slow – so it’s out for emergencies unless it’s your only option – and if you have a wand, it’s not,” John replied. “I know you’re not a fan of Floo calling, but it’s the best way to contact someone in a Wizarding home or business. The thing is, you can’t pop into Mycroft’s office that way. He might have someone in there with him. I mean – everyone knows you’re brilliant, Sherlock, but not brilliant enough to send your disembodied head through a fireplace to chat with your brother.”

“Right. If I had the ability to do that, I’d certainly try chatting with someone other than Mycroft.”

“Mrs. Hudson might believe you could do it. She already thinks you walk on water.”

Sherlock looked thoughtful. “No, I believe I’d rather mess with Donavan’s head.”

John grinned. “There’s one more way some wizards communicate. I guess it’s the closest thing we have to texting. But it requires a difficult spell.”

Sherlock perked up. “I can do that. I’ve had no problem with any of the others you’ve taught me.”

“You’re going to think this is really silly.”

“Please, John. We’ve just been discussing disembodied heads floating in fireplaces.” He settled back into the sofa, feet pulled up in front of him. “Go on, then.”

“Alright. Bear with me.” John settled back and mentally sorted out how to explain all of this to Sherlock. “The spell is the Patronus charm. It’s generally used to fight off Dementors. And before you ask – Dementors are evil beings – well, non-beings, actually – that feed on human happiness. Since they suck all the happiness out of a person, they naturally cause despair. They can also consume souls – wizards’ and non-wizards’ . They’re sometimes used as a form of capital punishment – they can suck out a soul and leave the victim in a permanent vegetative state. It’s actually called ‘the Kiss’ –”

“John?”

“What?”

“This _is_ leading to an explanation of the closest thing wizards have to text messaging, isn’t it?”

“Right.” John gave him an apologetic smile. “Things can be complicated in this world.”

“No more than in the Muggle World,” Sherlock deadpanned. “You have Dementors. Muggles have Mycroft.”

John laughed. “Yeah – he is pretty happiness-sucking, isn’t he?”

“Quite. So – things are complicated in the magical world. They’re also illogical. You set out to explain a form of magical communication that is similar to text messaging and so far all I’ve learned about a spell to repel soul-sucking non-beings.”

“Because the same spell is also used to send messages,” John finished. “I told you to bear with me, didn’t I?”

Sherlock stared at him. Finally, his face morphed into his ‘suspension of disbelief’ look. “Right. Go on.”

“No, really. I’m serious. I didn’t invent this stuff. I’m not making it up.”

“I realize that. Go on.”

John sighed. “All right. Fine. The spell produces the Patronus – in almost all cases it takes the shape of an animal. The animal always represents the caster in some way. Albus Dumbledore’s Patronus was a Phoenix. Harry Potter’s is a stag. The animal appears in a ghost-like form, but strong Patronuses are very bright and corporeal.”

“And what is yours?”

“A bear,” John said. “And it’s important to know that a lot of witches and wizards are never able to produce anything but a bit of shapeless mist. It’s a difficult spell. It was a requirement to get into the Aurors, though, so I had to learn it.”

“Show me.”

John smiled. “Let me finish first. I’ve not cast one since I left the Aurors, Sherlock. And I haven’t told you why they’re so difficult either.”

“It won’t be difficult for you.”

John met Sherlock’s eyes. He sometimes didn’t know what to think about the depth of trust, the boundless faith Sherlock had in him.

“I think it will be a lot easier now than it used to be,” he said.

“Oh?”

John leaned forward and lowered his voice. “To create a Patronus, you have to think of the happiest memory you have. You have to concentrate on it and project it until it’s the largest thing – no, the _only_ thing – in your consciousness. And if faced with Dementors, you have to do it while they feed on your happiness, sucking it all away. It’s not at all easy.”

“Am I likely to meet one?” Sherlock asked.

“God I hope not,” John answered. They don’t often roam about London, and there haven’t been Dementors at Hogwarts since the war.”

“Excellent – I can leave that off my safety report, then. High marks for no soul-sucking non-beings lingering about the corridors.”

John grinned. “Look, I can show you the spell, and try to conjure mine. Like I said, it’s been a long time, but I think I can do it. When you’re good at it, you can give a message to your Patronus and send it off to deliver the message. You speak the message to it – it speaks in your voice and repeats exactly what you say when it reaches your recipient.”

“Do you need to know where the recipient is? Do you have to give directions on how to get there?”

John shook his head. “Nope.”

“Then how…?” began Sherlock. “Oh. Of course. _Magic_.” He blew out a breath. John knew he was talking himself back into his ‘I’m a wizard I don’t have to understand It’s just magic’ mind space.

“So if I learn this, I could send a message to you, or to Mycroft, and it will reach you quickly?”

“Within minutes. The only thing is – Muggles can see Patronuses. You have to be careful – use them only for emergencies.”

John stood and took out his cedar wand, smoothing it with his fingers. He moved to the middle of the room and took a couple of deep breaths. 

In the past, before he’d left the magical world, before Afghanistan, and certainly before Sherlock Holmes, his foolproof happy memory had been of his own Sorting. Not the experience of having the Sorting Hat on his head, or even of it deliberating between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor before finally calling out “Another lion cub for Gryffindor!” No – what warmed and filled his heart the most was pushing the overly-large hat up past his eyes and seeing the entire Gryffindor table on its feet cheering for him.

Well, he was the _last_ first-year to be sorted that year, but still – that overwhelming sense of welcome, of acceptance, stayed with him for years and still brought a smile to his face.

But that particular event had taken place long ago. It was a fond memory, still heart-warming, but it paled when held up to some of the events the last few years.

He sorted through them now. He supposed seeing Sherlock alive after two years should have qualified as his happiest memory, and the first punch had been absolutely cathartic and cleansing. However, coming on the tail of two bitter years of longing and grief coloured that experience a bit darker than it should have been. 

There was always that first night together – long before he and Sherlock were anything but casual acquaintances, when Sherlock had first wooed him with the promise of _more trouble_ , that first day, that first case. The very first time he had run down the stairs of 221B, chasing Sherlock’s coattails.

And as fervently happy those memories made him, there was still another to trump them all. The kiss – that first kiss – after his marriage crumpled and he’d moved back in with Sherlock. After a month spent pouting, getting his bearings back far too slowly, working too little, sleeping too much – Sherlock had woken him up just after he’d gone to bed with a case that couldn’t wait – and he’d given in, and got dressed, and followed Sherlock out into the rain. He’d forgotten his umbrella and had worn a coat that did nothing to repel the rain.

Hours later, he was soaking wet, shivering from the cold, and utterly miserable. They’d had a row on the kerb outside the door to their building, in the pouring rain that had returned with a vengeance, and Sherlock had asked him to take it inside, but he’d refused, and had kicked into a puddle of water so aggressively that it arched up and hit Sherlock in the face.

Sherlock had stood there, staring at John far too calmly, water dripping off his nose.

And John had laughed, because suddenly it – and everything else – was _funny_. Then he’d made some ridiculous remark about Sherlock’s hair having so much product on it that it still looked good after four hours of London rain and a bath in a mud puddle.

He’d been laughing when Sherlock took hold of his coat collar, but the laughter had fallen away when Sherlock, looking at him with fond exasperation, had kissed him in the rain.

It was the very last thing he’d expected. 

Everything was wet, and Sherlock’s lips were cold. The hands gripping the lapels of John’s sodden coat were white at the knuckles. He needed a shave – they both needed a shave – and the feeling of stubble on his face was just as unexpected, just as marvelous, as the cold, wet press of lips. The kiss was messy and rough and inexpert and nothing – nothing at all – like the kiss he’d seen Sherlock give Janine. He’d found himself kissing back, grasping the collar of the Belstaff and pulling Sherlock’s head further down, and droplets of water ran down their faces, but he didn’t mind them anymore.

“Now can we take this inside?” Sherlock had whispered, when his head was pressed into John’s neck and John’s hands had threaded back around his neck, behind the upturned collar. “I’m cold, and wet, and I’ve a warm bed inside big enough for two.”

And now John stood inside the small sitting room in their new quarters in Hogwarts, wand ready.

He extended his wand, and brought that kiss to mind, remembering every rain drop, remembering the taste of Sherlock, and the feel of his lips, the rasp of his chin, the smell of London and rain and wet wool and mud puddles and the street where they lived.

“ _Expecto Patronum!”_

A stormy mist of cloud shot out the end of his wand, coalescing before him with swirls of energy into the shape of his Patronus. His mouth dropped open and he stepped backward, his arm falling to his side.

“That’s an interesting bear.” Sherlock’s voice was very quiet behind him.

“That’s not a bear,” John said, taking another step backward as the Patronus quickly circled the room, returning to crouch down in front of John as if awaiting orders.

“Border Collie,” Sherlock stated, leaning forward with interest. John could practically see his brain working. “Athletic, great endurance, runs like the wind, smart, eager to learn, confident.” He stood then, and stepped over next to John. “We’ll look it up when we get back to London, but I assure you, it makes much more sense than a grizzly bear.”

“Black bear,” John said. “A great big lumbering black bear. Ferocious. Scared the hell out of nearly everyone.”

“Wouldn’t have scared me,” Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow.

John glanced at Sherlock, then back down at his new Patronus.

“They do change, sometimes,” John muttered. “I forgot to tell you that. Usually after something life-changing or traumatic. It happened to Tonks, when she fell in love with Remus. Changed to a wolf….”

“Imagine that,” Sherlock said. He held out his own wand. “My turn?”

John banished the dog with a _Finite_ and shook his head, still trying to internalise this very unexpected turn of events.

“Sherlock – a Border Collie is a dog. I’ve never even owned a dog.”

“Have you owned a bear, then?” Sherlock responded impatiently. “I’m sure it’s fine – not some manifestation of malfunctioning magic. You’re no longer an Auror. You’ve got me now, you’ve got to keep me in line and watch my back. I’m your herd of sheep.”

John nodded his head vaguely, even though he didn’t quite agree with that interpretation. From what he knew about Border Collies, they were all about herding the sheep or cattle, but they were all about doing it for their masters.

The thought didn’t upset him, but he filed it away for later when he could do a little more research. As he recalled from the days long ago when he had first learned the Patronus charm, the form the Patronus took was usually one that was associated with the traits of the witch or wizard, or a favorite animal, one for whom they had a great affinity.

Sherlock was eager for his turn, and John took hold of his wand hand to slow him down.

“The incantation is ‘Expecto Patronum.’ Before you cast, you have to be thinking of an insanely happy memory. Something that brings you so much joy that it will block everything else out. You need to be thinking about that memory – reliving it – as you say the incantation. Concentrate on trying to press all that joy and happiness out the tip of your wand and use it to create the Patronus.”

“All right – I’m ready.” Sherlock sounded both impatient and confident.

“You’re ready? You already know what memory you’re going to use?”

“Of course I do. I don’t have all that many truly happy moments of unbridled joy, John.” 

“Well – remember – it isn’t an easy spell. Some people never manage it. Most who do get it do so after a lot of practice. But we have plenty of time, now, so let’s….”

“ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Fortunately, Sherlock had his wand pointed into the middle of the room, for a smallish cloud of mist, but one traveling at great speed, shot from the end of his wand and lifted right to the ceiling, where it began circling the room until it was clear to both of them that Sherlock had produced a corporeal Patronus on his first try.

“A parrot?” John swiveled his head to watch the shining bird make circuit after circuit about the room.

“Apparently,” said Sherlock. He held his wand out like a perch and beckoned to the Patronus, which immediately flew down and perched on the wood.

“But – a _parrot_?” John repeated, gaping at the bird.

Sherlock held up his hand and John bit back his next comment.

“Hello Mycroft. John’s just taught me a very handy new spell. What’s your Patronus, anyway? A mealworm?” He shook his wand lightly until the bird lifted off. “Take that to Mycroft Holmes in London.”

The bird obediently disappeared through the wall.

“He’s going to murder you. Then he’ll come after me.” John flopped back down on the sofa. “What if he’s in a meeting? He could be anywhere, Sherlock! How is he going to explain a see-through parrot to Harry at Buckingham Palace?

Sherlock shrugged. “I want to see how fast this form of texting works in real time. Mycroft is the perfect test case.”

John shook his head and moved his feet so that Sherlock could sit. “So – a parrot.”

“Parrots are one of the most intelligent of animals. They’re problem solvers, extremely observant, and extremely loyal to their mates.”

“Are they now?” John dug his toes into Sherlock’s thigh. “They’re also loud, raucous, bite the hand who feeds them and preen a lot. I wonder if your Patronus has always been a parrot.”

“Why do you assume I had one before?” asked Sherlock. He pressed his lips together in concentration, then pointed his wand and said the incantation again.

“ _Expecto Patronum!is_ a parrot, then,” he said. 

“Well, it came so easily for you,” John said. “Most people have to practice and practice to get anything but a few wisps of smoke. Stands to reason it’s a spell you knew.” He watched the parrot for a moment. “It could be a macaw,” he mused. He pointed his wand and concentrated on his own happy memory. Jesus he loved remembering that kiss. The Border Collie was soon running circles about the room. But as John continued to think about that first kiss in the rain, the Collie jumped onto the couch and began licking Sherlock on the face.

“You do realise that our Patronuses are going to drive everyone else mad?” commented Sherlock. 

John grinned as the Border Collie leapt off the sofa and jumped for the parrot.

“It has a bit of energy,” Sherlock said, instinctively wiping at his face.

“Hmmm,” said John. He was watching the parrot, which was preening on the mantel. “Yours is flashy. Colourful. Maybe it’s a fashion statement.”

“It’s white.” 

Before John could respond, another shot of brilliant white burst through the wall and landed at Sherlock’s feet.

“Sherlock – you fool. Had I thought you capable of a corporeal Patronus, I would have instructed you to never send one to me, as I may now have to Obliviate two perfectly fine aides. Incidentally, your parrot is a menace. Thank God it can’t squawk except with your voice. And despite the total lack of decorum in delivering that message, I must congratulate you. To my knowledge, this is the first time you’ve ever succeeded in producing a Patronus.”

“Was that a beaver?” asked John as Mycroft’s Patronus began to fade away.

Sherlock nodded. “I believe so.”

John laughed. “A beaver. I bet he hates it. Totally undignified.”

“Hard working. Industrious. Destroys and builds at the same time.” Sherlock looked thoughtful. “The word for beaver in Latin is castor. Literally – castrator. The testicles of a beaver were said to have aphrodisiac properties. Legend has it that a beaver being pursued would gnaw off its own testicles to save itself.”

He caught John’s eye then and they both burst out in laughter.

“My first Patronus,” Sherlock said, looking at John significantly. “I suppose I could never quite work up a happy enough memory before now.” He stared at where the beaver had been a moment ago. “What do you suppose Mycroft thinks of? Torture?”

John laughed. “Probably McVitie’s Custard Creams,” he said.

Sherlock grinned. “He can eat a whole package in a go,” he said.

John smiled at him. “We should go find Ron,” he suggested. “He’s great on a broom – maybe he’ll give us some flying lessons. I could certainly use a refresher.”

“Oh, I imagine it’s like riding a bicycle,” Sherlock said. He stood and offered John his hand, then pulled him to his feet.

John vanished his Patronus, but Sherlock used his to send a message to Ron to meet them in the Entrance Hall. 

“It _is_ almost as satisfying as texting,” Sherlock said as they walked together down the corridor toward the stairway. “And far far better than sticking my head into a fireplace.”

_TBC_


	10. Polishing the ol' Broomstick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John meet some Goblins, ride brooms and have a visit to the infirmary.

**Chapter 10**

Sherlock and John may have been looking for Ron, but they found the headmistress first. She was in the Entrance Hall, overseeing the yearly cleaning and recalibration of the giant hourglasses. A team of goblins was hard at work polishing the gems at work tables set up beneath what seemed to be precariously-placed scaffolding.

“Auror Weasley is in the kitchens – again,” the headmistress informed them when John inquired as to his whereabouts. 

Sherlock, despite his apparent eagerness to try out a broom, had quite forgotten about Ron in his sudden fascination with the activities surrounding the house hourglasses, and the intent of having them to begin with.

“A magical points system,” the headmistress explained. “Professors and key staff members, and sometimes the Head Boy and Head Girl, award or take away points based on performance or behavior. For example, a student may be punished with a detention – a personal punishment – as well as the loss of house points. That punishment extends to the entire house, resulting in peer pressure to be on one’s best behavior at all times."

“Until your house sinks so low in the standings that it just doesn’t matter anymore,” John said. “Then all hell breaks loose.”

“For a short time, perhaps,” the headmistress said. “But now that Mr. Holmes is a Professor here at Hogwarts, I can cue you both in to a little faculty secret. We watch the points carefully. To encourage our students to always be on point, we give little nudges here and there. Encourages competition, and gives the trailing houses a bit of hope.”

“Wait – wait, wait, wait.” John, who had been distracted and was watching the goblins polish the Slytherin emeralds one by one, spun around to face the headmistress. “You _cheat_?”

“Cheat is such a harsh word, Mr. Watson,” she said with a sage smile. “Better said – we play the system. For the good of the students, of course.”

“So if one house has pulled far ahead – say they’ve won all the Quidditch games and hardly had any detentions –"

“Which never happens, of course, but go on. I’ll suspend disbelief for the present.”

Sherlock tore his eyes away from the goblin who was meticulously weighing each polished gem, recording the results, then placing it on a silver tray which was then passed up a line of goblins to the one at the top of the scaffolding. The conversation behind him was nearly as interesting as the activity before him.

“Right.” John glanced at Sherlock, who was standing now with his arms folded, watching them like they were players in a tennis match. “So – if one house pulls far ahead, you _deliberately_ start rewarding them less and giving the other houses extra points?”

“Oh, we’re far more likely to continue to reward good behavior, perhaps less generously, and to penalise them more for smaller infractions. We wouldn’t want to be too obvious about it, would we?”

“You’ve crushed my entire childhood,” John said, but there was an amused glimmer in his eyes. He turned to Sherlock. “Do you have any idea how hard we worked for house points?”

“None at all,” Sherlock said. “The entire concept is foreign to me. The reward of winning must be quite attractive to get students to actually alter their behavior so drastically.” He looked at John, then at the headmistress, obviously not understanding the expressions on their faces.

“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it,” stated the headmistress. She glared at John. “Right, Mr. Watson?”

“Obviously,” he said. “Because all the winning house got was their house colours and banner decorating the Great Hall at the end of term feast. Well – and possession of the House Cup for a year.”

“Ahh.” Sherlock looked back at the goblins, then whispered. “What _are_ those things, anyway?”

“Goblins,” John whispered.

“And they have excellent hearing,” whispered Minerva. 

Several of the goblins had looked up and were glaring at Sherlock. 

“Right. Exactly. Just as I thought,” he said. “So - no tangible reward. No day off school, no special trip, no pizza party in their common room.”

“Kids aren’t criminals, Sherlock, they –” began John.

“Not all of them, anyway,” the headmistress added, under her breath.

“ – they aren’t always in it just for themselves. They’re great team players, actually. Sometimes, the only motivation they need is to be on top of one of the other rival houses. It’s about intangible rewards – pride, for example.”

Sherlock looked dubious. And not very interested. He kept glancing away from John’s impassioned speech toward the goblin at the very top of the scaffolding, the one charged with dropping individual emeralds back into the hourglass with a satisfying _plink plink_. 

“He’s not much of a team player, actually, Headmistress,” said John.

“Oh please, John. Call me Minerva.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “And we’ll work on Sherlock." She watched him as he observed the goblins, tuning out everything else. "He’ll certainly be a fresh breath of air around here.”

“Are those actually _emeralds_?” Sherlock interrupted.

“Of course. We’ve emeralds for our Slytherins, blood rubies for Gryffindor, blue topaz for Ravenclaw and yellow sapphires for Hufflepuff.”

Sherlock glanced at John. He looked slightly horrified. John shrugged.

“I suppose I never thought about it while I was a student,” he said. 

“They’re not of the highest quality,” Minerva whispered. Several of the goblins lifted their heads from their weighing and sorting and stared at her, frowning. “Still, they’re real, and worth millions, or so I’m told.”

“What are they doing, exactly?” John asked. “Or better yet – why?”

“The gems are owned by Hogwarts but managed by Gringott’s. Every year, the bank sends a team of goblins here to polish, weigh and calibrate the hourglasses and their contents. They’ve been doing this for a thousand years." She watched the goblins work for a moment. "I really have no idea why.”

“Has there ever been a theft?” Sherlock asked, forgetting to whisper.

Most of the goblins stopped working and stared at Sherlock, immediately suspicious. Apparently, one should not speak of theft around goblins polishing precious gems.

“On the night Albus Dumbledore died, the Gryffindor hourglass was broken and the gems scattered. Every one of them was located and restored. A similar breach occurred during the Final Battle – but this time, it was the Slytherin glass that was destroyed. While some of the gems were lost among the rubble of the battle, we don’t believe any were actually stolen. The gems are a symbol of the houses and are an integral part of Hogwarts.

“The hourglasses are incredibly complicated magical objects,” Minerva continued. “Children learn not to interfere with objects such as these. In short, Mr. Holmes, they leave them be.”

“So – protective charms?” asked John. He himself had never tried to tamper with the hourglasses, though he and his friends had tried to tamper with nearly everything else in the castle, including the portrait of the Fat Lady, the taps in the Prefect's bathroom and the trick stairs leading up to the Gryffindor girls' dormitories. “What happens if someone tries to fiddle with one of them?”

Minerva smiled. Sherlock thought she looked absolutely dangerous. The more time he spent with this iron lady of a headmistress, the more he liked her.

“Spots. They spell out the word ‘thief’ across the culprit’s face. Impossible to get rid of them without the rather complicated counter-curse. Now, if you gentlemen don’t need me, I’ve got some vermin to round up.”

And with that, the headmistress morphed into a grey cat and bounded up the marble stairs, taking them three at a time. The last they saw of her was the tip of her tail, flicking suggestively as she turned a corner.

Sherlock stared after her, then turned to John and opened his mouth to speak.

“I know, I know,” John said. “Put it on the list. No problem. Simple Animagus transformation. You’ll probably master that one in a week.”

“A week? An entire week?” Sherlock complained as John pulled him toward the stairs that led down to the kitchen. His voice could still be heard as they disappeared downstairs. “Can I pick any form? I think I’d like to change into a goblin. They’ve got such interesting ears and such surly little faces….”

ooOoo

As much as Ron Weasley liked eating, he liked flying and Quidditch even more. Thus, it had not been difficult to convince him to leave the kitchen and come out to the Quidditch pitch with them to give Sherlock some flying lessons.

They stopped in the equipment room first, where Ron handed the ball box to John as he picked out brooms for each of them.

“These are just school brooms, but they’ll have to do.” He rejected one with a number of loose twigs and kept digging. “They’re a lot better than what we had when we were here, though.” He sounded more matter-of-fact than envious.

John, who hadn’t been on a broom in nearly twenty years, had to agree. From what he remembered, the school brooms were a sorry lot indeed. 

“These are all self-leveling with cushioning and stability charms,” Ron said. He’d settled on three brooms and handed them out, keeping the newest looking one for himself. John didn’t mind – he preferred something a little slower, a little less dangerous, than the racing brooms they’d used in Auror training.

“It’s made of sticks,” said Sherlock. He was holding his broom upside down, handle on the ground.

“Twigs,” John corrected. 

“Fine. Twigs. Which are small sticks.”

Sherlock and John plodded out onto the pitch after Ron. He led them to the center of the field.

“You don’t need any lessons, John,” he said. “Go on and give it a go – it will come back to you as soon as you lift off the ground.”

John grinned, glancing at Sherlock. “Oh no. I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” he said. “I don’t mind starting from scratch.”

Ron shrugged. “Have it your way,” he said. He placed his own broom on the ground and stood beside it, hand held out to the side. “Arrange your broom like mine, and hold your hand up over it like this. You’re going to say ‘Up’ and at the same time – mentally command the broom to jump into your hand. Like this. Up!”

The broom snapped upward into his hand.

“Up!” John commanded.

His broom rose to meet his hand, not as fast as Ron’s had, but still at a respectable speed. He turned his gaze on Sherlock.

“Up!” shouted Sherlock, a little too loudly.

The broom shot past him into the sky at least ten meters, then fell slowly back to the ground.

“Well, that was rather climatic,” Sherlock said, looking at the broom on the ground.

“You were supposed to hold your hand out,” Ron reminded him. “But you’ve got the general idea. Now, put the broom between your legs and try to get the feel of it. It’s much easier when you’re leaning forward since there’s really no seat.”

John settled himself over the broom, running his hand over the polished handle. He’d always loved flying, but had never been good enough for the Quidditch team. Not with people like Charlie Weasley in Gryffindor.

“No – Sherlock – not yet – No!”

Sherlock had pulled the broom handle up slightly. He took off across the grass, only a foot or two above the ground, stopping abruptly when he hit the wall at the edge of the pitch.

“I’m fine – fine!” He shouted, picking himself and teetering around in a dizzy circle. “But I think this broom is defective.”

“It’s not the broom that’s defective,” muttered Ron, rolling his eyes. “He doesn’t listen much, does he?”

John snorted. “He doesn’t do anything by halves,” he said. They watched as Sherlock mounted the broom again. This time, he jerked the handle upward at a much steeper angle. Ten seconds later, he had crashed into the press box at the top of the stands.

“Ouch,” Ron said. “Does he even realise he hasn’t had a lesson yet?”

“I’ll go,” John sighed. He kicked off the ground smoothly. The broom had decent acceleration and excellent balance. He leaned forward, bending over the handle, and gained speed, pulling up when he reached the press box. Sherlock was sitting on the announcer’s bench, legs crossed, watching him approach.

“I can see Hogsmeade from up here,” he informed John as John landed in the box. “It’s rather quaint, don’t you think?”

John shook his head. “You are going to get on that broom and before you move an inch on it, you are going to _listen_ to me. I’m going to tell you how to accelerate, decelerate, steer and stop. Then you are going to fly back down to the middle of the pitch and wait for me. Understood?”

“When do we get to play with the balls?” Sherlock asked, completely ignoring John. He pointed at the goal hoops. “And do we fly through those hoops to score?”

John blew out a frustrated breath, then gave Sherlock an abbreviated flying lesson. He watched as Sherlock nearly catapulted to the ground, skidding to a halt beside Ron, tumbling off the broom and somersaulting over the end of it, then jumping up to prove he was unhurt – even though he was holding his elbow and had grass stains on his forehead.

To say that Sherlock was a natural on the broom might have been a bit of an overstatement, but the man was not hampered in the least by fear. He flew best when he was flying perfectly straight at inadvisable speeds. But Ron, to his credit, coached him patiently, muttering things like “This is worse than teaching my kids,” and “Is it really so hard to _turn_ before he hits the stands?” and “Ouch! He’s going to have an arse full of splinters.”

Ron’s words turned out to be prophetic.

“Isn’t there a way to get them out with magic?” Sherlock complained an hour later. He was lying on a bed in the hospital wing, bare arsed, as John used a wicked looking tweezers and something that resembled an acupuncture needle to extract broom fragments from his buttocks.

“I could use an incineration spell,” John mused. “If I knew one, anyway.”

“An incineration spell?” Sherlock craned his head around to stare at John. He looked intrigued. “Are those localised? Could you incinerate the splinter without affecting the flesh?”

“Nope.” John pulled out another splinter. “Get comfortable. You’re going to be here a while.”

“I think Weasley gave me a defective broom on purpose,” Sherlock groused. 

“The broom wasn’t the problem,” John murmured.

“Hello. Mind if I join you for a bit?”

John jerked his head around as Minerva entered the room. Sherlock turned his head and watched her approach. The only one even remotely embarrassed about the situation was John.

She pulled up a chair away from the business end of Sherlock, facing him while John continued to work.

“Auror Weasley informed me that you’d be here for the next hour or two, so I thought I’d go over the Muggle Studies curriculum with you. This is a convenient time, isn’t it?”

Sherlock’s head was turned to the side facing Minerva and resting on his folded hands. He gave a small shrug.

“Well, John’s rather busy at the moment but I’ve nothing better to do.”

“Good. Now – first years first. We like to start the young ones out with a study of the British monarchy. I’m sure you’ll hardly need supporting materials, but we do have animated busts of all the rulers going back to the fifteenth century in the Muggle Studies classroom.”

John pulled a particularly long splinter out of a very sensitive area at that exact moment. Sherlock winced.

“Good – the Monarchy it is. I can arrange a field trip to Buckingham Palace. Mycroft owes me.”

“Second years, then. Twelve and thirteen year-olds. World Geography. Countries and capitals, rivers and oceans and mountains.”

“How is Geography a Muggle Studies topic?”

“We don’t study it in any of our other classes at Hogwarts,” John said. "So Muggle by default."

“I see.”

Of course, he didn’t see.

“Third years study world religions and transportation.

“World religions and transportation. Of course. Excellent.”

Oh, so _not_ excellent.

“We spice it up a bit with our fourth years. Popular culture – television, music and cinema.”

John was trying so hard not to laugh by this point, just imagining Sherlock teaching popular culture, that his hand was shaking and he accidentally poked Sherlock in the scrotum.

“Hey!”

Minerva continued, ignoring the outburst.

“Fifth years study Muggle technology – you are familiar with Muggle technology, are you not? Air conditioning? Television antennas? Batteries?”

“Oh, he’s familiar with batteries,” John said, poking Sherlock in the arse again. “He has quite a few appliances that require them.”

“Very good. Very good indeed.” Minerva was checking her list. “Oh, sixth year is my favorite. We do famous Muggles the first half of the year and Muggle fashion the second. We have such a fun competition – designing clothing out of ducks.”

“Ducks?” Sherlock pushed up onto his elbows. 

"She must mean duct tape.”

“Duct tape?” Minerva frowned, and shook her head. “No, ducks it is. Each student gets two – a male and a female – and uses transfiguration to create a fashion design.” She sighed. “Some of them are quite original, though most utilise feathers rather heavily.”

“Dare I ask about seventh year?” Sherlock asked, dropping his head onto his hands again.

“Oh, we do all of our sex education and human anatomy in seventh year Muggle Studies,” Minerva informed him. “But you can change it all up, you know, as long as you stay within the general categories. You really should take a look at the Muggle Studies classroom – it contains a variety of teaching aids and text books, and you’ll want to decorate it before term starts.

“Maybe you could hang up a model of the Solar System,” suggested John.

Minerva stood. “Well, best of luck.” She craned her neck and watched John for a moment. “That looks exceedingly painful. Perhaps next time you should borrow some Quidditch leathers.”

“Perhaps next time I should polish my broomstick.”

John and Minerva exchanged a glance. They both burst out laughing.

“What? Well, I certainly won’t trust Weasley with my broomstick again!”

Minerva was still chuckling as she walked out the door.

“You’re annoyingly loveable, you know,” said John.

“That wasn’t very nice about the solar system,” returned Sherlock.

“So – sex ed, eh?” countered John. He was nearly finished pulling out splinters. Sherlock’s bum, however, looked like it had been scratched by a feral cat.

“Do you suppose there’ll be teaching aids for that too?”

John chuckled as he pulled out the last splinter. He then smoothed on a healing salve he’d found in one of the medicine cupboards.

“All better. Stay off your broom for a few years, won’t you?”

“It seemed like a small price to pay to have your undivided attention on my arse,” said Sherlock, sitting up and reaching for his pants.

“As if I could look at anything else when your pants are off,” said John, smiling at Sherlock as he put away his supplies.

Sherlock finished dressing and held out his hand to John.

“Come, let’s go see that Muggle Studies classroom. I'm rather interested in whether there are teaching aids for sexual education."

"I'd like to see if cadavers are used for human anatomy."

"I don't think they'd have cadavers lying around in the middle of the summer," said Sherlock.

"Oh - right. I forgot. This isn't 221B."

Sherlock shook his head. "I've never had an entire cadaver."

"Not yet," sighed John. "Not yet."


	11. Lessons with the Half Blood Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Sherlock visits the Potions Laboratory.

**Chapter 11**

“Well, if we have to stay here all four days, even though you’re going to have to come back in a few weeks _for the rest of term_ , I’m going to enjoy this bed. I might not get up until noon tomorrow.”

“You’re taking up a good deal of it right now,” Sherlock said. He was standing beside the bed, arms folded, looking calmly at John.

“Oh? Did you actually want some down time? I thought you had a Forbidden Forest to explore?”

“It’s dark, John. Both Minerva and Hagrid warned me to stay away from the Forest after nightfall.”

John turned his head slowly to the side and looked at Sherlock incredulously.

“They told you to stay away from the Forbidden Forest altogether, Sherlock. Not just at nightfall.”

“Then why did you suggest I go explore it?”

“Why did I….?” John sighed – sighed with his entire body. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sherlock, I most decidedly did _not_ suggest you go to the Forbidden Forest. I was _joking._ Hagrid promised to take us tomorrow. And by us, I mean you.”

“You’re not coming?” Sherlock dropped onto the bed beside him, flopping down in the small triangular space John wasn’t occupying. John, in fact, had made a point of collapsing diagonally on the bed with his limbs splayed out to occupy as much bed real estate as possible.

“I’ve seen it already,” John said. “It’s – well, let’s just say that the Forbidden Forest is not exactly inviting.”

“Not exactly inviting,” repeated Sherlock slowly. “But Hagrid mentioned Unicorns. And Centaurs. And his brother lives there – how _uninviting_ can it be if unicorns and Hagrid’s brother live there?”

John laughed. He grabbed Sherlock’s wrist and pulled him toward him. 

“That’s Hagrid’s half-brother. He’s a giant – a real full-blooded giant.” He scooted over so Sherlock could stretch out his lanky frame beside him. “Go with Hagrid tomorrow, Sherlock. You’ll love it, I’m sure. You can probably find a dozen varieties of fungus you’ve never seen before and can’t begin to identify.”

Sherlock brightened. “That reminds me – I’d like to see the Potions laboratory.”

“Ahh.” John rolled over on his side and propped his head up on his elbow. “I wondered when you’d think of that. I’m not entirely sure it’s a good idea. You could get into a lot of trouble in a Potions laboratory.” He grinned as Sherlock frowned. “Besides – you have your own classroom to – ”

“The Muggle Studies classroom is boring,” complained Sherlock. “Historical posters. Blah. Windsor family trees. Dull. Strange magazines – Shout and Seventeen and Tiger Heat…”

“Tiger Beat.”

“Like I said. And busts of political heads of state – not a single one still in office.”

“How do you know they’re not in office still?” John asked.

“Because you said so!” Sherlock exclaimed, exasperated.

“Well, it gives you lots of room for improvement,” John said. “You can bring things from 221B to spice up your classroom.”

“Naturally. I’ll bring your entire collection of jumpers for our section on fashion, and display them on John-shaped mannequins. And for the sex education segment, I’ll bring all your favorite brands of lube and condoms.”

“You mean _your_ favorite brands.”

“Well – yes. Whatever. No matter. I still want to see the Potions Laboratory. We should go now.”

“It’s nine o’clock, Sherlock.”

“Well, what does one do in a castle with no electricity at nine o’clock in the evening?”

“Homework. Sleep. Play Gobstones or Chess or Exploding Snap. Break curfew and snog on the Astronomy Tower. Write letters home. Hang out with your friends. Read.”

“I don’t have anything to read.”

“You have seven Muggle Studies textbooks, Sherlock! Seven. And a variety of very interesting – if out of date – magazines.”

“But we’re on holiday.”

John burst out laughing. “Let’s hope Minerva really is writing up that safety assessment for you,” he said. “Because you were sent here on a mission, and you’ve managed to totally stand that mission on its head. You weren’t supposed to be on holiday.”

“Actually – that might be entertaining,” Sherlock said. He climbed out of bed, struggling a bit to heft himself up off the sinfully soft mattress. He hurried over to the desk and sat down in the old fashioned wooden desk chair, pulled a piece of parchment off a convenient stack, and picked up the handy quill. He studied the inkpot, uncorked it, and stuck the tip of the quill into the ink.

“Categories first – King’s Cross Station, Hogwarts Express, Hogsmeade Station, Walk to the Lake, Boat Ride, Sorting.”

“What’s unsafe about the sorting?” John asked. “You don’t expect there to be a safety belt on the stool, do you?”

“Did you look at that hat, John? I mean – really look at it? It’s a thousand years old! It’s practically sentient! It tightened itself around my head when I wanted to take it off. Left to its own devices, it could most certainly fall down over a student’s head and strangle her.”

“You’re just being silly,” John said. He’d rolled over to his belly, and was resting his chin on his folded hands, watching Sherlock dab at the parchment where he’d left several serious ink blobs.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Conceded. The Sorting Hat does not present an eminent danger. Quidditch, however - ”

“Sherlock, you’ll be murdered in your sleep by students if you do or say _anything_ to get the Ministry to clamp down on Quidditch. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the faculty joined in.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ll actually be turning in the report,” Sherlock said. He dunked the tip of the quill into the ink pot again with flourish, then wrote QUIDDITCH across the paper in letters so large John could read them from across the room.

“What? Does that mean that _everything_ about Quidditch is dangerous?” John asked.

Sherlock turned his head slowly and stared at John. “Name one thing,” he said. “ _One_ thing about it that is not.”

“Um.” John’s face twisted in concentration. Really. One thing. This shouldn’t be so difficult.

“There’s protective gear,” he said at last, a bit cautiously.

Sherlock looked surprised. “Protective gear? Really?”

John nodded. “Of course.”

“With helmets?”

“Um – not exactly.”

Sherlock pounced on that. He’d already scribbled a list below QUIDDITCH in the short time they’d been talking. “Not exactly? How, then, if not _exactly_?”

“Well – no. No helmets. But there are wrist guards….”

“Wrist guards.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “And…?”

“Goggles.” Even John was grinning now. “Forget it – what’s on your list?”

“From the top? Splinters, excessive heights, excessive speeds, ineffective protective gear, bats, bludgers, excessively steep stands, potential crashes into spectators, and splinters.”

“You do know you said splinters twice.”

“I had them in my arse and my hand,” Sherlock answered. He was making flourishes along the edges of the parchment now with the quill. 

“Ah – right.” John watched him doodle. “Why don’t you come to bed, Sherlock? You can get an early start in the morning with Hagrid.”

“As soon as I finish this list of infirmary infractions,” Sherlock informed him.

“Infirmary infractions?” John rolled his eyes.

“Waxed floors. No child-resistant caps. Potion vials hand-labeled and not dated. No guard rails on the beds. Medicine cabinets not locked. Shall I go on?”

“Come to bed, Sherlock.”

Sherlock was examining his right hand. It was stained with several ink spots. He squinted at the largest one. “Looks a bit like Mycroft,” he mused.

“Bed, Sherlock.” John said. But he smiled as Sherlock rubbed at the offending ink stain, wondering when it would occur to Sherlock to use a spell to clean it off.

ooOoo

John kept to his resolve not to accompany Sherlock and Hagrid into the Forbidden Forest. He slept in instead, had a leisurely breakfast with Ron and Minerva, lost a quick three games of Wizarding chess to Ron, then walked up to the Astronomy Tower and surveyed the grounds. If his eye wandered often to the edge of the Forest nearest Hagrid’s hut, it certainly wasn’t because he was nervous and thought that Sherlock, left to his own devices with the impressionable Hagrid, might get into a bit of trouble.

He was, ultimately, happy they’d come here together. The more time he spent at Hogwarts with Sherlock, the more the positive memories of his life as a wizard pushed away those of the last few years he’d spent in the magical world.

There was joy here at Hogwarts. And not just for children. Joy in the everyday magic that simply _was_. Part of the background, part of the fabric of the castle and the school. So ordinary, in fact, that Sherlock seldom seemed to question its possibility at all.

Sherlock. Muggle Studies.

John leaned against the waist-high stone wall and turned his gaze toward the lake.

Sherlock would do fine here for the term. He couldn’t imagine him here for much longer – Sherlock would miss London, and would definitely miss the case work. Besides, he was relatively certain that by the end of the term, Sherlock would have committed enough faux pas with the children that he wouldn’t be invited back, and might, indeed, be asked to leave early.

Personally, he thought it was brilliant. He’d have adored a professor like Sherlock Holmes.

He grinned into the wind.

He supposed he adored Sherlock Holmes no matter how he was packaged.

Adoring Sherlock Holmes meant wanting to make Sherlock happy.

And what better way to make Sherlock happy than a visit to the Potions laboratory?

With a final glance toward the forest, he left the Astronomy Tower in search of Minerva.

ooOoo

An hour and a half later, Sherlock Holmes stood in the doorway to the N.E.W.T. level Potions laboratory, looking for all the world like Lestrade had called him in with a number ten.

John had secured permission from Minerva to bring Sherlock here to the upper-level lab, and had done a bit of prep work. He’d dug out a sixth-year Potions text and opened it to the instructions and ingredient list for a Blood Replenishing Potion, and had then set up a cauldron and other accessories at one of the work stations. He took some care to select the best equipment, the most intriguing stir rods and ladles, the most antique scales.

Sherlock took a moment to take it all in, eyes moving from stacked cauldrons to the shelves of ingredients, to the solid, worn work tables to the ancient blackboard.

“Like a negative of St. Bart’s morgue,” he said, not able to hide his giddiness. “Minus the corpses.” He turned and beamed at John. “But for today, I can do without the corpses.” He did a little pirouette. “First the Forbidden Forest and now this!”

He and Hagrid had come out of the Forbidden Forest relatively unscathed, and Sherlock, miraculously, had decided that his dream of camping there would have to be delayed due to high levels of mould spores.

John thought the real reason had more to do with the unforgiving nature of the trees and brambles on his clothing.

Now, Sherlock was at the Potions workstation in no time, reading the formula John had marked, picking up each item on the table and studying it in turn – graduated beakers, carved wooden and twisted glass stirring rods, mortar and pestle, intriguing brass scales, gleaming silver knife. The textbook was held open with a heavy piece of glass – serving the dual purpose of keeping the book open and the instructions ready and protecting the book from spillage and other damage. 

John hadn’t had time to collect the ingredients required for the potion, and Sherlock looked around the room, eyes lighting on the shelves.

“The ingredients are in alphabetical order. You need to measure carefully and follow the directions in the book precisely. Sherlock - _everything_ is important. 

He sat across from Sherlock but tried not to interfere. He showed him how to set the magical fire to heat the cauldron, and, when the time was appropriate, discussed slicing versus dicing versus pulverizing. 

Sherlock worked quietly. Intently. Keenly focused. Exactly as John had known he would.

He asked a question now and then, made an occasional comment, always in a low voice, always with his primary attention on the potion. At one point, when the potion moved from a bubbling slow boil to the required rolling boil at exactly the right time, a pleased smile lit up his face. 

“I’ve done this before, John,” he said as he ground up scarabs with the mortar and pestle, the book before him nearly forgotten. “I know how to do this – these go in last, sprinkled over the top and stirred in just until they’re absorbed.”

John watched him, fascinated.

Sherlock mixed in the pulverised scarabs, stirred five times clockwise, then set the stirring rod aside as a pungent, metallic odor rose from the potion with a roll of steam.

He lowered the flame under the cauldron, using his wand without turning to John for assistance. 

Then he stood there, staring at the wand in his hand, bemused.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said after a considerable pause. “But I have no idea how.”

“Alright.” John looked from the cauldron to Sherlock. He wasn’t sure he was ready for a flood of memories to roll over Sherlock, memories from his deliberately deleted past. He thought it would be far better for Sherlock to continue to rebuild his magical self, on new footing.

“Did you hear me, John? I _know_ this. I know how many time to stir, and when to add the pulverised scarabs.”

“I had a feeling I’d find you here.”

Ron Weasley poked his head into the room and sniffed the air. “Blood replenishing potion. Something I should know?”

“No – just something I remembered vaguely enough to set up for Sherlock.”

Ron walked over and stared into the cauldron.

“Wow. That looks – well – perfect.”

“It _is_ perfect. He’s quite adept, isn’t he? I knew that ridiculous hat put him in the wrong position.”

Severus Snape stepped out from behind a tall set of ingredient-laden shelves in a painting of an old-fashioned Potions lab hanging on the wall beside the door. He folded his arms and looked disapprovingly at Ron. “Looking more like your father, Weasley.” He lifted his hand and ran it suggestively through his own hair as Ron stared, gobsmacked, at the portrait.

“But – but – you…you don’t speak!” he sputtered. He looked imploringly at John. “Everyone knows it – Snape’s portrait hasn’t made a sound since Harry had it commissioned. Everyone thought it was a dud, or that the enchantments wouldn’t stick because he wasn’t a real headmaster.”

“Wrong.” Snape’s voice cut in, as smooth and cold as ever. Ron sputtered to a halt and turned to look at this miniature Snape. 

“Oh – I don’t think that,” he said, trying valiantly to regain his footing.

“Of course not. Though you wouldn’t have any direct experience with my tenure as headmaster, what with your severe case of Spattergroit.” He looked haughtily at Ron. “I see it’s not cured yet.”

Sherlock took a quick step in front of Ron as Ron tensed and stood.

“Headmaster,” Sherlock said. For a moment, John thought that Sherlock was actually intervening to prevent an escalation between Snape and Ron. But no.

“Could you teach me? Reteach me, that is? I’ll move to a work table closer to you. I don’t need sleep – and imagine you don’t either.”

“You do need sleep,” said the Potions Master. “Some sleep, at least. Which you can easily attain by conjuring a small bed in the corner beside the storage cupboard. There are times when potions must rest for several hours. You can spend that time prepping for your classes and napping.”

Sherlock could not help but look at John a bit smugly.

“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” John asked with a sigh. “You’re going to go all white and pasty on me and never see the light of day.”

Ron covered his mouth in an unsuccessful bid to stifle a chortle. Snape’s miniature face inside the classroom painting set itself into a menacing scowl.

For his part, John pretended he hadn’t just insulted his former Potions Professor.

“Watson – Watson.... Hmm. Certainly not one of my more memorable students.” Snape had turned his gaze at John and was eying him up and down. “N.E.W.T. in Potions – required for the Auror academy.” He gave John the most minute nod of approval and turned his glare back on Ron. “Waived for the best friend of the boy hero, I assume, considering you weren’t even _at_ Hogwarts your N.E.W.T. year? Now let me think – where were you?” He tapped his finger against his cheek two or three times. “Right. You were on an extended camping holiday –”

Sherlock stepped smoothly between Ron and the painting while John moved in front of Ron to prevent him from plowing through Sherlock and tearing the painting off the wall.

“Why are we wasting time taunting Weasley?” Sherlock asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet and completely ignoring the scuffle immediately behind him. 

“No idea,” said Snape smoothly, giving Sherlock a calculating look. “Though you might step out of the way. Weasly and Watson are fighting like Muggles behind you. Watson’s face is turning an alarming shade of red and he’s threatening to pull out what little hair Weasley has left.”

Sherlock spun around.

“John!”

He started to try to pull John away from Ron but John was in full adrenaline rush and was having none of it.

“Ahem. Mr. Holmes. Your wand?”

Sherlock pulled out his wand and pointed it at John and Ron.

“Aguamenti!” he shouted.

It was quite a useful spell. John had taught it to him some time ago when he’d accidentally set fire to the kitchen table.

He said it now with quite a bit of urgency, and an extremely large quantity of water, at very high pressure, shot from his wand. 

It surprised the hell out of the two men, who immediately stopped fighting as they flailed across the floor on back and belly.

“Crude, but effective,” complimented Snape. 

Sherlock pocketed his wand and stepped closer to the painting.

“Now then,” he said. “Let’s start with Polyjuice Potion. I can have my brother procure hair from a variety of government leaders, sovereigns, heads of state, even sports and entertainment celebrities. Imagine Muggle Studies classes with lectures from Queen Elizabeth and that football player who married that spicy singer.”

“Excellent idea, Professor Holmes. If we get started today, it will be ready in time for your first week of classes. “

“Can you Polyjuice into a creature?” Sherlock asked. “How about someone who’s already dead? I have a ready supply of corpses at St. Bart’s. It doesn’t have to be hair, does it? Fingernails will do – or perhaps entire fingers?”

“You really are quite brilliant,” said Snape. “Of course – anything with the genetic imprint. You could throw in an entire eyeball, or a kidney.”

“Splendid!” exclaimed Sherlock.

John, looking up and listening from his position on the floor, covered his face.

There were two things he hadn’t wanted to expose Sherlock to just yet – the Room of Requirement, and Polyjuice Potion. Sighing, he stood and helped Ron to his feet, and headed for the door.

“Just explain that he can’t use it around Muggles – please,” requested John of Snape as he dripped his way into the corridor.

“Tell him to Polyjuice into a cat,” muttered Ron. “Worked out well for Hermione, at least.”

He grinned, and followed John out the door.

“Hog’s Head?” he asked, catching up with John.

“God yes,” said John. 

The last thing John heard before he was out of earshot was Sherlock’s excited voice as he reviewed the potion’s ingredients. 

“Leeches! Excellent. Will it improve the efficacy of the potion if I attach them to myself first?”

John grinned. Snape didn’t have a clue what he’d gotten himself into.


	12. Second Guessing the Room of Requirement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John encounter the Room of Requirement and second guess each other's intentions.

**Chapter 12**

John admitted that he was a bit tipsy when he returned from the Hog’s Head with Ron, but not so tipsy that he should have completely lost his mind and done what he ultimately did that night.

When they’d returned to the castle after an enjoyable two hours reacquainting himself with rather marginal patrons of the Hog’s Head, he went in search of Sherlock. He checked in the Potions classroom first, but the room was in pristine condition. As Sherlock Holmes was not one to leave any room in such condition – ever – John assumed that Snape had laid down the law, or that the house elves had cleaned up after him.

Sherlock wasn’t up in their quarters, and there was no sign that he’d been there either. Nor was he with Hagrid.

And Minerva hadn’t seen him, either. Not since she’d ducked into the Potions laboratory an hour ago to find him brewing Polyjuice Potion with Snape himself.

John sat on the stairs in the Entrance Hall and thought. His nice buzz was beginning to wear off already and he considered just going up to their quarters again and reading until Sherlock wandered home, probably at some ungodly hour of the morning after getting lost in the North Tower. But as a last-ditch effort, he tried sending his Patronus. The border collie took off through the walls with his message, but returned, confused and panting, running around in circles, a few minutes later.

“Oh bollocks,” Minerva said, pushing back her desk chair when John returned to her office. “He must be in the Room of Requirement.” 

“But you told him to stay away from the Room of Requirement,” Ron said. He’d been helping John search for Sherlock and had just completed an exhaustive search of the kitchens. He collapsed into a chair in the Headmistress’ office. “Did you tell him how to find it?”

“Of course not – I’m not an idiot!” exclaimed John. He blew out an annoyed breath. “But neither is he.”

“Severus,” said Minerva, shaking her head. She stood and knocked on an empty picture frame behind her desk, just to the left of Albus Dumbledore’s portrait. “Severus Snape! Come up here at once!”

“Shouldn’t we try to get into the Room of Requirement to find him?” John asked as Ron and Minerva stared expectantly at Headmaster Snape’s empty portrait frame. 

“It’s not that easy, actually, explained Minerva. “To get in, you need to know where he is. Or, more precisely, what, specifically, he requested of the Room. Severus!”

She banged on the portrait frame a few more times and at last the former Headmaster sauntered into his portrait, looking bored and a bit put out.

“All the racket, Minerva. Is it really necessary?”

“Quite.” She glared at him, hands on her hips. “Where is my new Muggle Studies professor, Severus?”

“Ah. The Muggle Studies Professor. Professor Holmes.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just spent the last several hours with the man. “He shows remarkable promise at Potions. Are you sure you can’t convince Slughorn to give it up this year instead of next?”

“Quite,” repeated Minerva. She had relaxed back into her desk chair, and sat in it now, staring up at her predecessor. “Severus – did Professor Holmes ask you how to access the Room of Requirement?”

Snape looked bored. He stared at his fingernails. “I really don’t recall, Minerva. We talked of a great many things.”

And with that, he settled onto the high-backed throne-like chair in his portrait, rested his arms on the armrests imperiously, and swept his gaze across John and Ron.

“A bloody throne,” muttered Ron. “Why did Harry have to commission him in a _throne_?”

“Professor Snape, please.” John stepped forward, swallowed his boyhood fears, and addressed his old Potions master directly. “I don’t know what you know about Sherlock – but he’s a detective. He solves crimes for a living. Grisly homicides. Serial killings. Brutal torture.” 

“Intriguing,” said Snape, attention focused solidly on John now. He raised one eyebrow. “Do go on.”

“Right. Professor Snape – what if Sherlock asked the Room of Requirement to present him with the perfect crime? He could be in danger. He could be sucked into a situation he couldn’t escape without help.”

“Are you insinuating, perhaps, Watson, that there is a crime which Sherlock Holmes could not solve?” asked Snape.

John shook his head. What was Snape up to? More importantly – what did he know? “No. Of course not. He always solves them – usually before anyone else. But I don’t know that he’s ever had to use magic to solve anything before, and he doesn’t always think to use it. You had to remind him yourself, earlier. To use his wand to defend himself.”

“The Room of Requirement doesn’t do that.” Ron had stepped forward now. He put his hand on John’s shoulder to get his attention. “Not like that, anyway. It’s a room – a space. It becomes the place you’re looking for – that you need. I don’t think it could – or would – create a crime.”

“While I agree that the Room would not create a crime, it could, indeed, create a crime _scene_ ,” Snape cut in, looking imperiously at Ron. 

“Severus, please.” Minerva’s voice rose above the others. “Did you, or did you not, explain to Professor Holmes how to access the Room of Requirement?”

They all stared at Snape. He studied his fingernails a bit more.

“I did.”

Minerva sighed. John frowned. Ron glared.

“Why didn’t you tell her the first time she asked?” Ron groused.

“I did. This is the first and only time she asked if I explained how to access the room. Her previous question was whether Professor Holmes asked me how to access it.”

“And how, precisely, did this come about?” cut in the Headmistress. 

“I don’t understand,” drawled Snape. “Is there a reason you do not want the new Muggle Studies professor accessing the Room of Requirement?”

John stepped forward. His insides were churning but he was less worried now than he had been earlier. He knew about the Room of Requirement only from stories he’d heard after he’d left Hogwarts, and from Hermione Granger Weasley’s tome on the war and the Final Battle. A book Sherlock had read even before he had. He’d never been in it himself, and may indeed have over-estimated its magical abilities. 

“Sherlock is brilliant,” John said. “I’m sure you’ve already deduced that yourself. His mind is pure genius. He has nearly perfect recall. He’s a scientist. He understands facts, and physical properties, cause and effect. Magic nearly drove him insane, because he couldn’t explain it rationally.”

Snape seemed affected by John’s impassioned speech. He was giving John his full attention now, staring at him with unveiled interest.

“He’s only become reacquainted with magic this last year. He’s learned to accept that it can’t be explained with the tools of science.” He took half a step closer to the portrait. “He’s like a first-year in Honeydukes, Headmaster. The Room of Requirement could overwhelm him.”

“And what is the danger in that?” sniped Snape. “He’s a grown man, not an undisciplined first year. You’ve no reason to be angry with me.”

“He’s a grown man who spent fifteen years living as a Muggle,” John said. “And I’m not angry – I’m worried. I’m worried about him being alone in there.”

“Severus, please,” Minerva implored. “Do you have any idea what Professor Holmes might have asked the room to provide?”

“You are certain he is there?” asked Snape. “You’ve searched the castle?”

“I sent my Patronus to him with a message,” John explained. “It came back almost immediately. It couldn’t find him.”

Snape frowned. “Because the room is unplottable,” he mused. He seemed to come to a decision then, and addressed John. “We discussed the theory of the room,” he said. “I explained how it had been used in the past – most notably during my year here as Headmaster.”

“You knew?” Ron’s eyes were wide. “You knew half the students here were hiding out from you and the Carrows in the Room of Requirement?”

“Hardly half, Mr. Weasley,” answered Snape with a dismissive roll of the eyes. “And yes, I _knew_. Just as I knew you were not deathly ill with Spattergroit. I had sources, Mr. Weasley, _and_ resources. House elves that are loyal to Hogwarts and her Headmaster, for example, and who delivered food to the Room of Requirement _on my orders._ ” He spoke slowly, looking down his nose at Ron.

“I always wondered about that,” trilled the Headmistress. “Very good of you, Severus. Very good.”

“Hmph.”

“So you don’t know, then?” John asked. He was beginning to sound a bit desperate. He kept glancing at the door, hoping Sherlock would burst in at any moment, overjoyed at whatever discovery he’d made in the Room of Requirement. “You don’t know what the Room would become for him?”

Snape shook his head. “Regrettably, no.” He gazed at John, then shook his head slowly. “I admit that Professor Holmes and I got a bit…sidelined – moving from a practical lesson into more conceptual matters. He spoke of a space time continuity, and I mentioned the Room or Requirement –”

John executed a nearly flawless face palm.

“I hardly think he’s in danger,” Snape continued. “The Room of Requirement is a room, not an alternate reality. And Mr. Watson – of all of us here, are you not the one most likely to guess what Mr. Holmes would ask the Room to provide?”

“It won’t open for you unless you guess right,” Ron advised John, as John stood there, arms crossed, staring at the floor, racking his brain. 

“If I may say something.” 

John looked up at the familiar voice, turning his full attention to the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, who had risen from his chair and was standing in the foreground of his frame, hands grasped behind his back. 

“Please – have your say,” said Minerva. “Equal time for all former headmasters.” She didn’t even turn to face him, but raised her right hand in the air and circled her finger to signal that he should proceed.

“Professor Holmes is not in danger from the Room of Requirement or from anything it might present him. It cannot present him with an enemy. The room has, in time of great need, opened a portal to an area outside of Hogwarts, but this – ” He held up his hand as John took an involuntary step forward. “But this is _not _such a time. If Professor Holmes is, indeed, in the Room of Requirement, the only real danger to him – is _from_ himself.”__

__And that was enough._ _

__John paled._ _

__He’d been nervous previously – worried, if he was honest with himself._ _

__But now? Now he was scared. The biggest danger to Sherlock was nearly _always_ from himself. _ _

__He grabbed Ron by the arm._ _

__“Room of Requirement – now!”_ _

__Five flights of stairs, two of which deposited them precisely where they didn’t wish to be, eight corridors, an encounter with Peeves and a run-in with a suit of armour when John skidded too quickly around a corner on the polished stone floor later, they stood near a tapestry depicting a wizard attempting to teach trolls ballet._ _

__“Barnabas the Barmy,” Ron said, panting. “Can always count on him to make the impossible seem - even more impossible.”_ _

__“Right,” said John. He was pacing in front of the blank wall in front of them, running his hands over it. “So – how do we do this?” He looked at his hands, surprised to find he was already holding his wand._ _

__“Come over here. Stand next to me and face the wall.”_ _

__John took a breath and did as Ron asked._ _

__“You need to walk past the entrance – which should be right in front of us – three times. And you need to be thinking about what you need from the room. And remember – the only way to get in if someone else is already in there is if you can guess what they asked the room, or if you happen to ask it the same thing. Like if you really needed to use the loo, and someone else had already gone into it also needing to use the loo….”_ _

__“Right. Good. I get it.” He didn’t need further descriptions of what one could get up to in a loo. He stared at the wall. “Well, I may as well guess, right? What’s the danger of it? It will only open if I guess correctly.”_ _

__He couldn’t let go of the fear he’d had from the very beginning, silly as it seemed now. That Sherlock, presented with the possibility of a semi-sentient room, would ask for something to challenge him like nothing else had, to push the limits of his Mind Palace._ _

__Of his Mind Palace…._ _

__No._ _

__Was Sherlock’s Mind Palace an actual place? Would Sherlock has even _dared_ to attempt something of that magnitude? Asking the Room of Requirement to grant him entry to his own Mind Palace?_ _

__“Hey! You did it!”_ _

__John looked up._ _

__“I didn’t even ask it anything,” he said, staring at the ornate wooden door that had definitely not been there a moment before. “I was still thinking.”_ _

__“You were pacing and thinking. You had to have made at least three passes in front of the wall, mate,” Ron said. He grinned and walked over to stand next to John. “So – what were you thinking?”_ _

__“No way, Sherlock,” John muttered, shaking his head. “No bloody way. Not your bloody Mind Palace.”_ _

__“His what?” asked Ron, looking at John curiously._ _

__But John didn’t answer. He walked to the door and stood looking at it. It had a round brass handle exactly in its center._ _

__He glanced back at Ron. He wasn’t sure that Ron Weasley would survive an excursion inside Sherlock’s brain. Or that Sherlock, once in, would ever voluntarily leave._ _

__“I think I need to go in alone,” he told Ron. “Would you mind staying out here?”_ _

__Ron shrugged. He didn’t seem overly concerned. “Fine. Try to get him to come out soon, though. It’s been a long day.”_ _

__John nodded and stared at the door again._ _

__Did he really want to do this?_ _

___God yes._ _ _

__He grasped the handle and pulled the door open, then stepped inside._ _

__The door closed behind him._ _

__Ron stared distractedly at the door as it disappeared, melting back into the wall until there was no sign left that it had been there at all._ _

__He studied the tapestry for a while, but there was only so much entertainment to be gleaned from a depiction of trolls in tutus._ _

__“John – where’s John?”_ _

__Ron gaped._ _

__“What are you doing here?” he asked, fumbling a bit for words as he faced what appeared to be a very corporeal Sherlock Holmes._ _

__“Looking for John.” Sherlock stared at Ron, narrowing his eyes, then glanced at the blank wall, then stared at Ron again. He crossed his arms over his chest, his stare morphing into a glare._ _

__“But … but…” Ron stammered, pointing at the wall and shaking his head. “We thought you were _in_ there. So John tried to guess what you’d asked the room, then he asked it for the same thing he thought you might have asked it for, and the door appeared, and we thought he’d guessed correctly, didn’t we? He told me he’d better go in without me, and then – he did.”_ _

__“But I wasn’t in there anymore.” Sherlock passed a hand over the blank wall. “So the only way for me to get back in now that John’s in there is to guess what he thought I would have asked it to become for me.”_ _

__“He did say something before he went in, actually,” Ron offered. “But it didn’t make a lot of sense.”_ _

__“Now might be a good time to tell me what that was,” Sherlock said, still standing in exactly the same spot, regarding the lack of door._ _

__“I think he said ‘mind palace’.”_ _

__Sherlock closed his eyes, opened them again. He let out a deep breath and slowly turned to face Ron. “You’re certain? Those were his exact words? Mind palace?”_ _

__“ _Bloody_ mind palace, actually,” Ron said helpfully._ _

__Without a word, Sherlock began to pace in front of the wall. In no time, a door appeared, the very same door that had appeared for John, complete with round brass handle exactly in the center._ _

__Sherlock stared at the door, then turned his head and addressed Ron once again._ _

__“I’m not convinced I’ll be able to leave of my own volition once I get inside,” he said, rather calmly for a man about to launch an excursion into his own mind. “If I’m not out in one hour, fetch my brother. Tell him what you’ve told me. He’ll know what to do.”_ _

__And with that, he pushed open the door, and disappeared inside._ _


	13. Whose Mind is it Anyway?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock experience the Room of Requirement, and it's not at all what either expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably not what you were all expecting - but hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

**Chapter 13**

John paused, inexplicably nervous, several steps inside the door.

He was in a corridor, narrow and dark, tunnel-like, barely tall enough to stand in, but increasing in diameter as he moved forward.

His footsteps didn’t echo. The sound seemed to be absorbed back into the material of the floor, which gave slightly under his feet, softy and organic like the soft earth in a garden.

Somehow, he’d not expected Sherlock’s mind palace to be this – well – _boring_.

“Sherlock?”

His voice seemed to be absorbed by the walls. There was no answer.

He took a few more steps forward, turning when the corridor veered to the left, and emerging into –

What the hell?

A cavernous room, circular at first glance. A domed ceiling high above.

A diffused, golden light permeated walls and floor and ceiling and a strange vibration, hidden, almost not there, like a smoothly idling automobile, enveloped the room. 

The room was oddly warm, humid.

“Sherlock?” he called again. He didn’t see any sign of him, and he frowned, worried.

The center of the room was clearly a work area. Rich-coloured area rugs covered the floor, an assortment of tables, a group of low, soft chairs.

A violin, bow across it, lay on a chair behind a music stand.

“Hey!”

Something whizzed by his ear. He jumped to the side as one of his old jumpers, the oatmeal cable-knit one he’d worn so often years ago, flew into the middle of the room and settled, in a heap, on his chair.

He squinted. His chair was in Sherlock’s mind palace. _His_ chair.

He stood there a moment longer, turning in place to study the room, recognizing, the more he studied it, the neatly organised hexagonal compartments built into the gently curving walls. 

A hive? Sherlock’s mind palace was a _beehive_?

Appropriate, he thought, given Sherlock’s frequent lectures on the microcosm of apian society, the structure of the honeycomb.

The hive mind. 

He walked toward the gently curved and sloping wall and scanned the carefully printed labels, labels printed in Sherlock’s unmistakable handwriting, labels set squarely in the middle of the door of each and every compartment

SOIL.

John smiled. He pulled open the door. The smell was earthy. Cool and comforting. Hundreds of little bags, each meticulously labeled. Clay, loam, sand. Sandy loam. Silty clay. 

Right. 

He glanced around again, took two steps to the left, and pulled open another door. 

PERFUME.

Ugh. Overpowering. An entire compartment of tiny vials - sweet and cloying and floral.

He was reminded of funerals. Of weddings.

MISC. 1

MISC. 2

MISC. 3

The next three compartments he opened were full of the type of odds and ends that collect in a home over the course of years. Rubber bands and matches and lighters and string, paperclips and batteries and sticky pads and postage stamps. A pocket knife. An ice pick. A human eyeball in an olive jar filled with formaldehyde. Old keys. Lock picks. Hotel key cards and used up gift cards. A jeweler’s lens. A handkerchief, a package of Rizlas, a handful of ballpoint pens and mechanical pencils.

Mismatched cufflinks.

An assortment of remote controls for long-gone devices.

John let out a breath, closed the last door, and turned around. 

The violin began to play.

Better said, violin music filled the air. The violin remained where it was on the chair.

John pressed his lips together. Where the hell was Sherlock?

He considered, for a moment, leaving. Sherlock was clearly not here. Except – well, except that he was.

It felt like Sherlock here. Felt like he was hiding around the corner, sleeping on the sofa, _directing_ the violin even if he wasn’t playing it.

The violin music – was manic. Sherlock’s thinking music, his _I’ve got this case to solve and I’m not there yet_ music. He could imagine Sherlock pacing, pacing, pacing.

The jumper. His old favourite. A sign of welcome? Recognition? Sherlock’s Mind Palace greeting him and saying: “Here! Get comfortable!.”

He scanned the walls again. Stared at a group of cubbyholes stuffed with what looked like parachute fabric, black plastic garbage bags, rolls of canvas.

He walked around the room slowly, fingers trailing along the wall, reading everything at eye-level.

ANATOMY OF THE HAND.

SERIAL KILLERS.

ARSON.

BLACKMAIL.

THE LONDON UNDERGROUND.

TROPICAL DISEASES.

TOBACCO.

WEDDINGS.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

That one gave John pause. He looked both ways before peeking inside. A single cleric’s collar atop _The New English Hymnal._

THE WOMAN.

Ah.

He stopped in front of the door, staring at the words etched in a fine script on delicate, opaque glass.

It was with great effort that he stepped away from the door, only to find himself face to face with a cubicle with the word “John” scrawled across the door in Sherlock’s hand.

What oddments had Sherlock stored in the cupboard marked with his name?

He thought he might know.

And while he wasn’t surprised, when he finally dared open the door, to find his most comfortable, most well-worn, most well-loved jumpers, he _was_ a bit surprised to find the Rizla with the word Madonna scribbled on it. Even more so when he found his old cane, standing in the corner.

A picture stuck to the wall – his own head pasted on Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.

A stack of women’s clothing.

It took him no time at all to recognise Mary’s coat, Sarah’s scarf, Jeanette’s blouse, Louise’s t-shirt.

The cubicle was larger inside than it appeared. He found his gun in a locked box – he opened it easily with the combination he somehow knew. Another box held his medals, his discharge papers, the medical files from his gunshot wound. The compartment smelled like 221B, like London in the rain, like the inside of a taxi cab.

He found a folder with his birth certificate, his middle name circled with a red marker.

_Hamish_. What the hell were his parents thinking, anyway?

The cubby holes were fluid. They shifted, seemingly randomly, scooting over to make room for something new. 

He dared to open a door marked Mycroft, and was soon buried to his waist in black umbrellas, and the scent of danger.

“A beehive?”

John spun on his heel.

Sherlock was standing across the room, arms folded loosely in front of him, staring up and around then back at John.

John smiled in relief, shook his head fondly. “You should know. This is your Mind Palace, not mine.”

“Is it?”

Sherlock’s head was titled back and he was staring at the apex of the room, far above them. It was only dimly lit, like the top of a cathedral dome.

John, accustomed to Sherlock’s non-answers, took a step toward him. “Where were you? I’ve been in here a quarter hour at least.”

Sherlock shrugged. “I just got here. Fortunately, Weasley was able to tell me what you’d asked the Room. Enough to get me in here, anyway.” He pushed with one hand against the door frame, then examined his hand, bringing it up to his nose to sniff it.

“No – no. That’s not right. You were already in here. Snape told us he’d told you how to get in.”

Sherlock had pulled open a hexagonal cubicle door. He sniffed the air then stuck his head inside, drawing it out after a few seconds.

“Tea. Excellent. I wouldn’t mind some now.”

In the Room of Requirement, apparently, you only have to ask.

A tray materialised on the table between John and Sherlock’s chairs, laden with teapot and teacups and a very appealing selection of biscuits. Sherlock beckoned to John as he took his seat.

“Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t come directly here after you spoke with Snape,” John challenged. He walked to this chair and stood behind it, staring at Sherlock, who had plucked a biscuit off the plate.

“Of course I came here,” Sherlock answered. “Don’t be daft.”

John stared at Sherlock.

“But you just said you weren’t here when I came in – that you just got here.”

“True.” Sherlock took a bite of the biscuit. “I came here. I tested it out. I didn’t – ” and here his glance swept around the room again, obviously appreciatively. “I didn’t jump right into my _Mind Palace_ , John. I tried something simple first.” He looked at John and smiled. “I told it I desperately needed to use the loo.”

John edged around his chair and dropped into it. “The loo? When presented with the most magical phenomenum in Britain, you asked for the loo.”

“A test John – like I said – a test. And it gave me a perfectly lovely, Victorian-era loo.” Sherlock grinned. “With a tank a good six feet above on the wall and the longest chain. It made the most interesting sound when I pulled it.”

John couldn’t help but grin. “Right. But then – you tried something else?”

“Mycroft’s office. I thought it would be brilliant to get the codes for the CCTV cameras.”

“And?”

“The Room delivered a perfect replica of Mycroft’s office, and it was only then I realised the limitations of the system,” Sherlock answered. “There were at least forty umbrellas there, a treadmill and a drawer full of truffles. I wouldn’t have trusted the code if I had found it. The Room obviously draws from the requestor’s own mind when it forms itself. I have never imagined his office without a drawer full of sweets. Anyway - I left to find you and bring you back here with me."

John glanced over to where the umbrellas from the Mycroft cubicle still littered the floor.

He understood now, and didn’t quite know what to make of it. He leaned forward to pour for himself, but Sherlock held out a hand.

“I’ll be mother,” he said calmly. “Go on, John.”

“So….” John glanced around the hive-like room with its hundreds and hundreds of hexagonal cubicles, its low-level hum, its intense energy. Everything neatly compartmentalised, everythingneatly labeled in Sherlock’s own handwriting. Items filed away with categorical precision.

A junk drawer or two for everything else.

Sherlock selected a biscuit, placed it on a saucer beside a steaming cup of tea, and passed it to John.

“Mind Palace, John?” he said, settling back into his chair and blowing across the top of his own cup.

“Right. So I’m assuming this isn’t really yours.”

Sherlock scanned the room again, then looked at John. His eyes – his beautiful eyes _sparkled_. 

“No,” he answered. “This is an infinitely more interesting place than my mind palace,” he said. His head fell back slowly and he gazed again at the domed ceiling high above him. “Brilliant, John. Really brilliant. In your mind, you conceive this place as something akin to a hive.”

“I’ve never thought that,” John protested. “I’ve never thought of your Mind Palace as a place at all, in fact. I’ve always seen it as more of a system – an organizational system.”

A door behind John popped open and a wind arose. Index cards erupted from the cubicle and rose up in a turbulent spiral, then fell like confetti around them.

They sat there, staring at each other, as the cards fell. 

“So,” said Sherlock, flicking an index card off his head, “as you imagine it, when I need, say, information on how to diffuse an Underground carriage turned into a bomb – I riffle through index cards?”

John glanced around. He shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, no.” He gestured over to the black umbrellas piled on the floor. “Those fell out of a compartment labeled ‘Mycroft.’”

Sherlock gazed at the umbrellas, then steepled his hands before his lips and stared at John. His eyes were sparkling again. John found this quite disconcerting.

“You peeked?” he asked, not looking at all disturbed. “You opened doors in my Mind Palace?”

John shrugged. “I’d apologise for invading your privacy, but you’ve just told me this isn’t really _your_ Mind Palace. So – how did it work? I asked the room to take me to your Mind Palace, thinking you were already in here. But because you weren’t, the Room only had my mind to draw from – my concept of your Mind Palace.”

“Exactly. And about that – when you started poking around here, you _thought_ it was mine.”

“Fine,” said John. “I was looking for you.”

“In a compartment marked ‘Mycroft’?”

John grinned. “There’s one marked ‘Anatomy of the Hand’ too.”

Sherlock smiled. “I doubt I linger there too often.” 

They stared at each other again, comfortable here, as anywhere, everywhere.

“There’s also one marked ‘John,’” John said, looking into his tea.

“Only one?” 

John looked up. “I haven’t checked them all,” he said, “but the one I found seemed to have everything covered.”

Now Sherlock was looking into his tea, an odd, whimsical look on his face.

“Tell me about it,” he said quietly. The ambient light in the room had dimmed in the silence, making the space they occupied more intimate. The violin music began to play, but softly, a slow and lilting tune they could barely hear. “In your vision of my Mind Palace, what’s in the little cupboard marked ‘John?’”

“Mainly jumpers,” John answered, raising an eyebrow.

“Jumpers,” repeated Sherlock. 

“Hey!” John ducked as a Christmas cardigan whizzed by his head and landed in Sherlock’s lap.

Sherlock held up the garment. “Perhaps I’ve absconded with the most dreadful ones and hidden them here?” He dropped the jumper onto the floor where it promptly unraveled and reknit itself into a scarf with solid bands of Christmas colours. 

Sherlock snatched up the scarf and smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled.

“What else is in the John compartment?” he asked, running his hand over the scarf then folding it and draping it on the arm of his chair.

“The usual,” John said with a shrug. “My gun, my military files, a few medals, some other paperwork.”

“Paperwork?” 

“My birth certificate.” 

Sherlock grinned. “John Hamish Watson.”

“Hamish was circled with a red marker.”

“Show me.” Sherlock stood. When John made no move to stand, remaining resolutely planted in his chair, Sherlock simply walked over to the edge of the room and started scanning.

“Aha!” he said, then, “Oh, John, really? Still insecure about Irene after all this time?” But he ignored her compartment, and zeroed in on John’s.

John dropped his head into his hands. Now that it was clear that the contents of this room were created by _his_ mind instead of Sherlock’s, he felt horribly exposed.

Sherlock returned a few minutes later. He took his time walking back, and when he reached his chair, he leaned forward, giving John his undivided attention.

“John Hamish Watson,” he began, resting a hand on John’s knee, and speaking softly but more earnestly than John had ever heard him speak. “I could never fit you into a compartment that size. I have an entire wing devoted to you. With additions. And while your jumpers are perfectly lovely, and your gun is incredibly useful, there is no space in the John wing of my Mind Palace for your former lady loves’ discarded clothing. It is too full of the way your skin smells in the morning, and the two hundred and twelve ways you show your pleasure or displeasure with a glance or a gesture. I have an entire cupboard devoted to the texture of your scar, a room full of the sound your footsteps make on the stairs – how I know what kind of day you’ve had, or if you’ve had a run-in with Mycroft, or have stopped in for a quick cuppa with Mrs. Hudson. I’ve filled the passages and stairways with the sounds you make when you’re on the cusp of orgasm, and I’ve catalogued every single mole on your back, every hair on your chest, every laugh line around your eyes. I’ve memorised every word in every blog entry you’ve ever made, filled an entire footlocker with your nightmares and locked it down tightly. There’s a nook with mirrors on three sides to examine the memory of the night I returned after my absence, so I can see every mark you put on me and reflect on how deserving I was of every last one. There’s a room for every time you were injured or ill, for every time I nearly lost you. And there’s a room where I do nothing but relive the feeling of your hand in my hand, the first time I held it, and another where I consider the taste of our first kiss.”

If he was surprised by the suddenness of John pulling him forward, by the force of his kiss, by the strength of his arms around his shoulders, he didn’t say. But he traced the path of the tear on John’s cheek, and kissed the corner of his eye.

“You keep me right, John Watson,” Sherlock said. “And there isn’t enough space in the world to contain all you are to me.”

John's arms tightened around him even more. 

"You do realize we're on a bed now," said Sherlock, rolling on top of John.

John kissed him. He fucking _loved_ magic. 

(TBC)


	14. Restoring the Contents of the Recycle Bin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft intrudes on the Room and Requirement and Sherlock gets new robes. But who is that familiar face working at Madam Maxine's?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay with this chapter. Only a few more left to go.

**Chapter 14**

Being interrupted in the middle of a rather vigorous snogging session which was clearly leading to an even more vigorous shag was certainly not John’s idea of fun.

“Damnit. Forgot about Mycroft,” Sherlock said into John’s ear.

“Why is Mycroft in your mind palace?” John groaned, flopping onto his back on the luxurious bed and staring at Mycroft with displeasure. He didn’t even try to hide the erection that tented his trousers, though it was rapidly diminishing under Mycroft’s scrutiny.

“This isn’t Sherlock’s mind palace. This is a beehive with a bed.” Mycroft paused and looked around. “And no bees.”

“How would you know this isn’t his mind palace?” Given the inopportune interruption, John was feeling particularly resentful and contrary. “Have you ever actually been inside your brother’s mind palace?”

“This place is much too orderly for Sherlock’s mind,” Mycroft stated, eyes scanning the room. 

“It has junk drawers,” John retorted. “Several of them.”

“It also has a pile of brollies.”

“It used to have a cupboard of brollies,” John corrected. He did not move from his comfortable spot in the comfortable bed. 

Mycroft, who hadn’t moved from the doorway, managed to look both bored and intrigued. A difficult look, to be sure. John was horribly annoyed yet mildly impressed.

“Mycroft, why are you here?” asked Sherlock. He sounded as annoyed as John, but managed a vague disinterest as well.

“I am here,” Mycroft began, stepping closer to the center of the room but keeping a polite distance between them, “because Ronald Weasley sent his Patronus – a most energetic Jack Russell terrier, in fact – informing me that you were in the Hogwarts Room of Requirement and were, apparently, _stuck_ in here.” He stared at his brother. “You don’t appear to be _stuck_.”

“I asked him to fetch you if I wasn’t out in an hour,” Sherlock said. “He clearly panicked and sent for you early.”

“He sent for me an hour ago,” Mycroft informed him. “How long have you been snogging in here, anyway?”

“What took you so long?” Sherlock asked indignantly, neatly turning the conversation back on its head. “We could have been in deadly peril in here.”

“Or you could have been snogging, or worse.” Mycroft walked over to the pile of umbrellas and sorted through them, picking up an expensive-looking black one with a carved handle. He used it to tap on compartment doors as he walked around the room, stopping, at last, in front of a compartment. He tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge.

“There’s a door here without a label,” he said, turning to face Sherlock and John. “Everything else had been meticulously labeled – things found inside a pig’s carcass, important facts about football – a very small compartment, of course, British rail schedules.” He tapped on the compartment again with the umbrella. “But this one is unlabeled.”

“Why do you suppose that is, John?” asked Sherlock. He crossed his feet and folded his arms behind his head.

“I have no idea. This is your mind palace, not mine.”

“No, this is the Room of Requirement’s representation of what you imagine my mind palace to be,” Sherlock corrected. “So – what would you imagine would be behind an unlabeled cupboard door in my mind palace?”

“I have no idea,” John answered. He glanced around the room. Why wouldn’t Mycroft just _leave?_ He and Sherlock had better things to do than discuss unmarked doors in a virtual mind palace. “Something you’ve forgotten, maybe?”

Sherlock and Mycroft stared at each other. Mycroft turned and immediately tugged on the door again.

“Precisely! John – that’s it!” Sherlock bounced up and clapped his hands. “Moved to the recycle bin but not deleted! Items in the recycle bin aren’t searchable, are they? But John – they are recoverable! They can be _restored_!”

He nearly vaulted out of the bed and ran to Mycroft’s. Mycroft stepped away as Sherlock took hold of the handle. 

The door opened at Sherlock’s touch.

Light flooded the room as the compartment opened. The contents of the cupboard exploded outward with the force of gravity. Planets and moons. Comets and asteroids. Mathematical formulas to determine density and weight, orbits and rotations. Diagrams of the moons of Neptune, the rings of Saturn. 

Sherlock’s mouth dropped open. He stared at the orbs arranging themselves in the empty space above them, ducked as a misshapen lump whirled around his head and arranged itself in orbit around Mars.

The Solar System.

Deleted.

“Deimos,” he said, pointing at the misshapen orb. 

John was on his feet now, head tilted back, looking at the display of light and colour and movement above him.

“Deimos?” he asked, curious. 

“Second moon of Mars,” whispered Sherlock, moving around the room, fascinated.

“Can you put it back?” asked John, hoping that he wasn’t going to be treated to discourses on the various moons of Saturn and Jupiter. He remembered that there were bunches of them, though he couldn’t have said exactly how many.

“It doesn’t necessarily work like that,” Mycroft warned. He, too, seemed enthralled with the planetary display. “This isn’t really Sherlock’s mind palace. This is -”

“Yeah, I know,” said John at the exact same time Sherlock said “He knows that, Mycroft.”

They eyed each other and smiled.

“But this could mean – I mean, _could_ this mean that other things you’ve deleted might be accessible?” John spoke guardedly as he watched a comet make its way across the faux sky.

“Yes.”

Sherlock hadn’t moved from his spot. But his hands were steepled in front of his face now, and his eyes were closed. He seemed totally unaware of them, unaware of any of his surroundings, as he delved deeper into his brain, into the fortress of his mind palace.

“This isn’t good.” John glanced at Mycroft. “Think of everything he might have deleted during his life – not just magic, but everything. If he figures out how to access it - ”

“He’d be brilliant,” muttered Mycroft.

“He’s _already_ brilliant,” John reminded him. “But all that data at once – it could make him insane.”

“He’s already insane,” quipped Mycroft. 

John scowled at him good-naturedly. “Look – if he’s really just misfiled everything he thinks he’s deleted, he could make the connection at any time and be bombarded with everything he’s ever deleted - everything. The things he thought weren’t important enough to remember _and_ the things that were too painful.”

“Normal people have to deal with those things all the time,” Mycroft said.

“He’s not normal,” John said. He stepped closer to Sherlock. Sherlock’s eyes were still closed, his hands still steepled. “Sherlock?”

“He can get a therapist,” Mycroft said. 

“A therapist? Sherlock?” John laughed. He shook his head. “Right.”

“ _You_ had one,” Mycroft reminded him. 

“And it obviously helped,” John replied sarcastically. “Kept me sane and on-track and away from the Holmes family.”

Mycroft looked away, obviously trying to hide a smile. “Quite.”

And with that, Sherlock opened his eyes, dropped his hands and spoke.

“I’ve got it. Come – I need to speak with Snape.”

Mycroft and John quickly glanced at each other, then back at Sherlock.

“Snape?” John glanced longingly at the bed. Obviously, the room realised it wouldn’t be needed, as it was in the process of morphing back into the chairs from which it had originally grown.

“Of course. Master Legilimens, you said?”

“Snape is dead, you realise,” Mycroft stated. “And Legilimency requires eye contact. The dead are notoriously bad at that.”

“There is only one person in the world I trust inside my head,” Sherlock stated as he moved toward the passageway that led out of the room. He turned to look significantly at Mycroft. “Besides myself, of course.” John followed Sherlock, not bothering to wait for Mycroft to catch up. “Snape was a master Legilimens. Snape’s portrait retains his memories and knowledge. He can help me with the theory so I can learn to selectively access items which may be present but simply inaccessible in my organisational system.”

“Uncatalogued,” Mycroft clarified. “And if you do locate these things, and subsequently catalogue them, doesn’t this defy the purpose of losing them in the first place?”

“Not if my capacity is increased, if the organisational system can be improved to accommodate more data.”

He hurried ahead of them, heading to the N.E.W.T. potion lab at a “Lestrade has a 9 for us and I need to be there now” pace.

John let him get around a corner, then slowed and addressed Mycroft.

“So – he was a natural Legilimens, wasn’t he?” he asked.

Mycroft looked at John sidelong.

“No. He was a gifted Legilimens once he mastered the art. He was a natural Occlumens.”

John kept on walking. And thinking. _Occlumens._ “So his mind palace didn’t start out as an archive, did it?”

Mycroft shook his head. He looked pensive, and a bit worried, John thought.

“Fortress,” John said, quite sure now that he had it right.

“Yes,” Mycroft replied. “You’ve never asked him about it, I take?”

“I have – in the past,” John replied. “He’s always been very vague about the whole thing. ‘It just _is_ , John. I can’t explain it any more than you can.’”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “He can’t explain it because of its origin, of course. The whole thing began during his first year at Beauxbatons, when he began his formal magical education. He confided to me when he came home for Christmas holiday that year – that everything he was learning at school – wonderful and magical as it was – was compromising what he already knew – what he’d learned _before_ Beauxbatons. That he was afraid he’d forget the periodic table, and trigonometry, and physics.”

John couldn’t help but smile. He knew enough not to question that Sherlock had known these things at the age of eleven. He had no doubt that he had. He’d probably been able to speak Latin, too, and French, and was dabbling in Arabic.

“What did you tell him?” John asked as they started down the great marble stairway leading to the castle doors. “He came to you for help, right? For advice?”

“I told him that science and magic were not mutually exclusive,” Mycroft said with a fond sigh. “I told him to compartmentalise.”

John shook his head. “I knew it. It was you. _You’re_ responsible for the mind palace.”

“Perhaps for the inception of the idea, but certainly not for its execution,” Mycroft replied. He stopped at the bottom of the staircase and regarded John. “Are you prepared for this, Dr. Watson?” 

“Prepared?”

“For Sherlock Holmes in possession of his full magical ability and knowledge?”

“That doesn’t scare me, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” John stated. “I’ve had full possession of my abilities the entire time I’ve known him. I might have chosen not to use them, but the ability was there. And besides – I have a feeling that Sherlock might be selective about what he unlocks.”

“If he can be, he likely will be,” said Mycroft. “But you know as well as I how seductive magic is, how alluring. The taste of it is delicious, inviting. One bite, one swallow, and the mind won’t stop craving it. It’s like a drug, Dr. Watson, and you know my brother’s history resisting temptation there.”

John extended a hand to Mycroft. “I appreciate you coming. But I think I’d best go find Sherlock now and see if he’s made any progress with Snape.”

Mycroft shook his hand. “You’ll heed my warning?”

“I’ll stay with Sherlock,” John said. “I don’t care if he’s a great wizard, a mediocre one, a Squib or a Muggle.”

“He’ll be tempted,” Mycroft warned. “To use all the tools at his disposal – when he’s on a case. When he’s chasing a suspect. When he’s running from one.”

“He’s had magic back for more than a year,” John reminded him. “And he’s not so much as used a notice-me-not spell while we’re working.”

“Does he even know one exists?”

“He’s read every spellbook I own,” John answered. “Yes – he knows.”

“He’s hell-bent on solving every cold case on the books,” Mycroft warned. 

“And doing it on his own, with his wits and intelligence and powers of deduction.” John stopped. The argument was useless. They had no idea if this was a dead-end lead or a real possibility, if the memories and knowledge were somehow locked up in an uncharted portion of the mind palace, or were well and truly gone. “Look, Mycroft – you’ve trusted me with this – with him – for quite some time. You’re going to have to trust me now.”

Mycroft glanced around the Entrance Hall. 

“He somehow became a Hogwarts professor on your watch, you realise.”

John grinned. “Jealous, Mycroft?”

Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Hardly.” 

“Perhaps you should speak with the Headmistress. I’m sure they’ll be more vacancies –”

“Do call me again if you need me,” interrupted Mycroft. He nodded and walked briskly out of the building.

ooOoo

“So – Harry Potter.”

Sherlock stood in front of the full-length mirror in their quarters and adjusted his collar.

“Snape says I need the most-skilled Legilimens I can find. The Headmistress says it’s Potter. Therefore – I need Potter.”

“And he has to come here and speak with Snape.” 

“Yes. Exactly. John – we covered all of this last night.”

“But last night I didn’t know that the best Legilimens in the country was Harry Potter.”

“I suppose we should confirm it with Weasley, actually,” Sherlock said, turning and looking at John. John was leaning against the bedroom wall, wand tucked into his jeans pocket. He was wearing a pair of slightly too-tight jeans and a light-weight green jumper. 

“He’s waiting for us downstairs,” John said, pushing off the wall. “And if you ever stop primping, we can get on our way to Diagon Alley. Your appointment is in forty minutes.”

“ _Our_ appointment,” corrected Sherlock. “You’ll be getting robes too, of course.”

“I don’t need robes,” John said. “I’m not going to spend money on them when I’ll never wear them.”

Sherlock tucked his wand in his jacket pocket and headed for the corridor. “But you will wear them,” he said.

“I work in Muggle London. I _live_ in Muggle London. I like my jeans and jumpers. No one will expect me to wear robes when I’m in the castle, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grinned as they started down the stairs. 

“My instructions to dress you in appropriate Wizarding attire come from the Headmistress herself,” Sherlock stated. 

“ _Minerva_ wants to see me in robes?” asked John. “Why?”

“She claims they’re required for the Yule Ball,” Sherlock replied. “Which I am required to attend. And if I am required to attend it, then _you_ of course will attend it with me.”

“The _Yule Ball?_ ” John exclaimed. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But dancing, John.” Sherlock looked so wistful that John almost gave in on the spot.

“Yes, dancing. Dancing with hundreds of teenagers. With a Wizarding band. And snogging. Lots of snogging. And screaming. And drinking, because someone always spike the punch. The professors don’t actually get to dance after the first few formal dances. They have to patrol, break up snogging students, make sure everyone’s hands stay above the waist.”

“She didn’t mention patrolling. She mentioned you being there – in robes.”

John stopped arguing. Ron Weasley was approaching them from the Great Hall. He was dressed in his Auror robes again. 

“Is Harry Potter the best Legilimens in Great Britain?” asked Sherlock without preamble.

Ron looked around, narrowing his eyes.

“Probably,” he answered carefully. “But that’s a rather well-kept secret. Who told you?”

“The Headmistress. And she did mention that it wasn’t common knowledge.”

“Why do you want to know, anyway?” Ron asked as they walked outside and headed to the gates.

“I consulted with Headmaster Snape regarding a possible means of accessing memories I deleted,” Sherlock explained.

“You mean your magic?” Ron asked. “Your years at Beauxbatons?”

Sherlock stared at Ron, an odd look on his face. 

“I had an over-long Floo-chat with my brother late last night on that very topic,” he said. 

“Well, it’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” asked Ron. He waved to Hagrid, who was watering his pumpkin patch. 

“To those who don’t know me well, perhaps,” said Sherlock. “But John, at least, correctly deduced that the memories I’d most like to access are those I deleted while I was living as a Muggle. Magic I’ve always had and have the capacity to relearn.”

Ron shrugged, clearly not interested in debating it. “Sure. So what’s Harry got to do with it?”

“Snape needs to speak to him – to tell him - ”

“Wait wait wait wait wait.” Ron stopped, shaking his head. “You want Harry to come to Hogwarts to speak to _Snape_?”

“I want the best Legilimens in the country to come to Hogwarts to receive instruction from Snape on how to assist me with recovering the memories.”

“Right – you want Harry Potter to come to Hogwarts to speak to Snape.” Ron glanced at John for help, but John just grinned and shook his head. “You already told him, right, John? About Harry and Snape?”

“I read your wife’s book, cover to cover,” Sherlock reminded Ron. “And several other treatises on the war and the years before and after. I understand that the relationship between Potter and Snape was rocky but – ”

“Rocky?” Ron rolled his eyes. They’d reached the gate, and he opened it and stood back as John and Sherlock went through. He closed it then, and stood leaning against it, facing them. “They hated each other. Until the very end, when Harry finally understood what was going on, what he had to do. But it was too late then, for anything but resentment that he’d kept his secrets so long. Look, Sherlock – Harry might respect Snape now, and he might have named his son after him, but I don’t think Harry will take instruction well from him, especially in Legilimency.”

“Do us a favor and don’t say anything to him,” said John, giving Ron an apologetic smile. “We’ll have Minerva intervene.”

“He can’t say no to her,” Ron mused. “And he probably doesn’t even know that Snape’s portrait has finally woken up.”

“He wasn’t sleeping,” Sherlock corrected. “He was just bored.”

John grinned. It really was no wonder Snape and Sherlock got along so well.

ooOoo

Sherlock, to his credit, behaved himself like a true gentleman at Madam Maxine’s.

But then again, thought John, he was accustomed to tailored clothing.

The whole process of being measured and fitted had made John exceedingly uncomfortable when he was eleven, and every other year thereafter as he grew out of his robes and needed new ones.

Ron had gone off to visit his brother in his joke shop, so John and Sherlock headed into Madam Maxine’s alone, and the shop owner’s second in command was soon assigned to look after Sherlock.

“I don’t remember you from Hogwarts,” he said as he stood there with quill and parchment, scribbling down the numbers as the measuring tape danced around and about Sherlock.

“Beauxbatons,” Sherlock said, standing straight and still with his legs just slightly spread.

“And you’re the new Muggle Studies professor?” The young man looked slightly affronted. “A Beauxbatons boy?”

“John went to Hogwarts,” Sherlock said, nodding to John as the tape snaked between his legs, brushing against his crotch a bit too closely. “You must have been there at the same time.”

“We were,” John said, nodding at the attendant. “Hello, Draco.”

Draco Malfoy glanced at John, then back at Sherlock, then at John again.

Malfoy pretended to recognise him. “Of course. John.”

“John will need formal robes for the Yule Ball,” Sherlock said as Draco began pulling out bolts of fabric. He picked up the self-inking quill and began to sketch on the back of the parchment with the measurements. “Something like this – don’t you think?”

Malfoy dropped an armful of fabric bolts on the work table and bent over to study the sketch, leaning against Sherlock. He took the quill from Sherlock’s hand and altered the sketch.

“No – like this. It will make him look taller and draw the eye away from his little paunch.” He looked back at John. “You’ll be wearing boots with a heel, I assume?”

“Oh – too soon to know,” Sherlock said, giving Malfoy an engaging smile. “We’ll have it altered when the shoe decision is made.”

“Will the extra height minimise my _paunch_?” John asked, glaring at Sherlock. He expected Malfoy to act like a prat, but Sherlock wasn’t doing a thing to defend him. 

“We do have briefs made with Spandex,” Malfoy suggested to Sherlock. “They’re all the rage with wizards of his age.”

“Excellent. May he try them on?”

“I’m not trying them on.”

John glared at Sherlock, who raised an eyebrow.

“Fine. I’ll try them, then. John’s a little shy. Do you have them in red?”

Malfoy, who clearly received a tidy commission, continued to fawn over Sherlock while John sat in a chair, planning his revenge.

He wondered, first of all, if Sherlock had any idea who Draco Malfoy was. Malfoy had held up fairly well, though his chin and nose were even pointier than John remembered, and his hair was starting to thin. He was dressed in expensive and form-fitting trousers and shirt, with an open work robe with over-sized pockets over the top. 

When it was John’s turn to be measured, Sherlock chatted with Malfoy while the tape measure rubbed John obscenely. John had no idea why the distance between his nipples was important, but the tape measure captured it, and Malfoy wrote it down after calling out “Distance Between Nipples.” Several customers looked their way.

The final bill was quite shocking – John didn’t think Sherlock really needed eight sets of robes, but Sherlock apparently thought it not excessive. He produced a business card from his pocket and handed it to Malfoy.

“Charge it to this account,” he said with a smile.

Malfoy glanced at the card, then back at Sherlock, then at the card again.

“You’re Mycroft Holmes’ son?” he asked, looking exceedingly confused. “But I thought – well, I thought that….” He looked from Sherlock to John, his hand pointing from one to the other, then waving in a _you know what I mean_ gesture.

“Mycroft is my older brother,” Sherlock corrected. “I’ll send him in for some of these Spandex briefs.”

When the business transaction was completed, they left the store and started walking up Diagon Alley toward Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

“I’m going to kill you, you know,” John said, keeping his voice low and menacing. “Possibly before we get back to Hogwarts. Possibly before we reach the next street corner, in fact.”

“You do have a paunch, you know,” Sherlock said, sounding very calm for a man who was about to die. “Not as big as Mycroft’s, of course, but a small one, and I like it. It’s soft, and comfortable, like a pillow.”

“Not forgiven,” growled John.

“And you’re not very tall, and your boots do have a two-inch heel.”

“It doesn’t matter,” John said. “It was the way he said it. Presumptuous.”

“You wouldn’t have been this upset if the other attendant had waited on us and said the same things,” Sherlock said. “You didn’t like Mr. Malfoy.”

“No one likes Draco Malfoy,” John said. “Wait – do you know who he is?”

“Of course I know who he is. I’ve read the genealogies of all the big Wizarding families. I placed him as soon as he handed me his card. Now, if you’ll promise not to murder me for my lack of chivalry, might I tell you a thing or two about him?”

“Fine.” John could exact other revenge later. “Enlighten me.”

“Married. One child. Addicted to pain medication of some sort – I’m not familiar enough yet with the Wizarding varieties to make a good call. Definitely attracted to men….”

“As if that wasn’t obvious.”

“He’s also a submissive.”

“Oh?”

“And has a daddy kink.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Perhaps – but he is a submissive. And he’s overcharging customers and pocketing the extra. Quite obvious from the ticket. Don’t wizards do math?”

“Not well,” sighed John. “Are you going to turn him in?”

“I’m going to point out the error when we pick up our order,” Sherlock said. “Your robes should be free, as well as a few pair of those Spandex pants.”

“I hate you,” said John.

“No you don’t,” Sherlock returned. 

John reached for his hand, and Sherlock took it, and squeezed it affectionately, and they walked hand in hand over the cobblestones and nobody paid them the least bit of attention.

Until they walked into the joke shop.

_TBC_


	15. The Charms of the Veela

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock visit Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes where Fleur Delacour Weasley, a graduate of Beauxbatons, is working. John finds that Sherlock seems immune to her Veela charms while he, most certainly, is not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a mostly fun chapter, an interlude before the boys go back to Hogwarts. I have taken considerable liberties with Fleur's Veela charms here, and with her accent, and with French in general. 
> 
> Coming up next is the confrontation between Harry Potter and Portrait Snape.

Chapter 15

Sherlock stood outside of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, examining the building’s façade and window advertisements, a wistful grin on his face. A marquee displayed a blinking logo in neon colours – WWW.

“There’s a story behind this place, of course,” John told him. “Rumour is that Harry Potter won a thousand galleons his fourth year in the Triwizard Tournament and gave it all to Fred and George Weasley so they could make people laugh. That was the year the Dark Lord was reborn.”

“Voldemort,” said Sherlock.

John glanced at him. “Right.”

“It’s impressive,” Sherlock said. “Chaotic. I like it. Let’s go in.”

Fleur Delecour Weasley was working the counter when John and Sherlock walked through the door. John didn’t know her personally, but remembered that the oldest Weasley – Bill – had married a French girl, one of the Triwizard champions.

He didn’t recall, at that moment, that the girl was part Veela.

Sherlock, unbelievably, ignored her completely. It seemed that his eyes and brain were far too occupied with the sensory stimuli provided by the mountains of products, the ceiling-high shelves, the colourful displays, the sounds and smells coming from the wondrous items for offer.

John, however, despite his solid relationship with Sherlock, despite being at least mostly gay, despite not having been with a woman in a number of years, found himself, to his utter bewilderment, standing in front of the counter, staring at the counter attendant with a somewhat dazed look on his face.

The lovely woman winked and smiled.

John thought he might be drooling.

A voice from the room behind the counter interrupted his unfocused thoughts.

“Hey, Watson! That’s my sister-in-law you’re ogling!”

Something grabbed his shoulder a moment later and he was spun around and embraced heartily by a stocky red-haired man wearing very posh robes with the WWW logo they’d admired outside emblazoned on the front in shimmering rhinestones.

“George!” he exclaimed, returning the hug and pulling back to get a look at Charlie’s younger brother. “Wow. It’s been ages. Look at you – all respectable and fancy.”

“Who iz zat?”

John released George and spun around when the woman behind the counter spoke. She had the voice of an angel, melodious and breathy, and a soft glow seemed to emanate from her lovely face. Her hair was long and lustrous, somewhere between blonde and a curious golden silver. John leaned in on the counter with one elbow, a smile lighting his face as he gave her his undivided attention again.

“Good job, Watson.” Someone pulled at his elbow, upsetting his balance so that his head nearly crashed into the countertop. “Like I just told you - that’s my sister-in-law Fleur – Bill’s wife.”

“She’s lovely.”

“I know, I know. Sales have been good anyway these past two years, but they’ve increased by fifty percent on days she works.” He leaned in and whispered in John’s ear. “She’s part Veela, you know. She can get the blokes to buy almost anything just by casually suggesting an item.”

John blinked. “Veela? Really?” He forced himself to not turn around to take another look at the goddess.

“I mean – George – who iz _zat_? Ze man over zere. Ze tall good-looking one zat came in with your little friend here?”

Little friend here? He should be insulted. He _was_ insulted.

He turned around. Sherlock was paying them no mind, focused as he was on the display of Extendable Ears and Periscope Eyes. “That’s my partner – my _life_ partner,” he clarified, looking challengingly at Fleur. Suddenly, now that he realised she had her eye on Sherlock, she didn’t seem quite so fetching herself. Even though she was married to George’s brother, and probably not interested in Sherlock as a sexual conquest, he still felt slightly threatened by her, and highly protective of Sherlock.

What _had_ they learned about Veelas in the Auror Academy? It all seemed so fuzzy now.

The threatened feeling passed as quickly as it came, though. That must have been why he proceeded to tell her that he owned the Tower of London and was the CEO of Gringott’s.

“Non, non, non. I mean – what iz hiz _name_?”

John blinked. He turned and looked across the store. Sherlock was busily rooting through a barrel of Muggle magic tricks.

“Sherlock,” he said. “Sherlock -”

“Holmz!” Fleur finished for him. “I cannot believe it.” A tube of lipstick appeared out of nowhere and she reapplied it expertly. She tossed it in the air and caught it in her hand, but it was magically gone when she opened her hand and unfastened the clerk’s smock she wore over her form-fitting lilac robes. She dropped the smock on the counter, casually smoothed out her robes, and tossed her head from side to side, sending her hair cascading over her shoulders in a landslide of sparkling silver.

“Fleur! What are you doing? You know we discussed this – that’s taking your sales responsibilities one step too far. No – two steps too far. Three!! Stop!”

George’s protests fell on deaf ears. The woman was not to be deterred.

As George and John watched, Fleur glided across the store, seeming to float several inches above the floor, and threw her arms around Sherlock’s neck, kissing him first on one cheek, then on the other. These were not air kisses, but genuine kisses that lingered on Sherlock’s skin a bit too long.

“Sherlock! Mon cher! It haz been so long – years, non?” 

“Um – I think she knows him,” George whispered as John stared.

“Oh Lord, she’s French. She must have gone to Beauxbatons,” John said, suddenly anxious. “She knows him from school!”

He didn’t wait for an answer – nearly flying across the room, George at his heels, and reaching Sherlock’s side to find him already engaged in what seemed to be an animated conversation – completely in French.

Sherlock didn’t seem to be upset, and better yet, didn’t seem to be affected by Fleur’s Veela heritage. John looked to George – he himself knew almost no French, and certainly couldn’t pick even a phrase out of a rapid-fire conversation like this one.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” George said. His head was shifting from Fleur to Sherlock and back again.

It was fascinating.

Fleur spoke with her mouth, with her hands, with her eyes. And Sherlock. Oh my God.

If John had known – if he had known what the French language sounded like coming out of Sherlock’s lips, he’d have taken French immersion classes years ago and insisted Sherlock speak nothing but.

He wanted to sleep entwined with Sherlock in a bed of French syllables.

He frowned at Fleur. She was smiling at Sherlock, and suddenly reached forward and drew him down into a hug, laughing and babbling still.

Oh. Not good. More than a bit not good. The odd combative jealously surged within him again, and he lurched forward, as if trying to launch himself at Fleur yet hold himself back at the same time.

Before he even got close, he found himself pulled back against George Weasley’s chest, a strong and surprisingly hairy arm around his neck.

“Eh eh eh, mate,” George chided. “She’s family. We Weasley’s feel pretty strongly about family, you know. You’re not allowed to kill her. Or maim her. And relax – they’re just catching up.”

“They can’t be catching up,” John told him. “Sherlock has no memories of his years at Beauxbatons.”

“Well she obviously remembers _him_ ,” teased George.

“Why isn’t he – you know - _affected_ by her?” John whispered as they continued to watch the two.

“No idea. Is he normal?”

“Sherlock?” John choked back a laugh. “No – not at all.”

“Well, there you go then.”

“John!” 

John jumped, startled. Sherlock was beaming at him.

“Madame Weasley knew me in school. She claims I was quite brilliant – though it seems, from what she’s said, that I was in trouble quite often.”

“We brilliant people do have a problem with that,” George said.

“We were in a club together – do you hear that? A club! That implies social activity! Apparently, I didn’t spend every waking hour alone in the library.”

“All ze girls loved Sherlock,” Fleur volunteered now. She had her arm around Sherlock’s waist and he beamed at John again, clearly pleased with the turn of events. “He was so smart, et tres beau – so handsome. Ze curls – les yeux.” She laughed suddenly, a light, trilling sound that reminded John of summer time and sunshine and bumblebees.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to throw off the Veela spell. This was really getting quite annoying. Though it was even more annoying that Sherlock didn’t seem at all affected by it.

Fleur looked at John, then, and raised an eyebrow. “Not just ze girls, of course. Some of ze boys, too, had their eyes on our Sherlock. But he had eyes for no one – no one at all. We – we girls – we thought, perhaps, that ‘is enormous....”

“How does _she_ know that?” George hissed in a loud stage-whisper.

“… _brain_ some’ow overpowered ‘is ‘ormones.”

“Late bloomer,” George said, and Sherlock frowned at him while George snickered. 

“What club?” John asked, changing the subject. He didn’t want to let the conversation be side-railed into any discussion of enormous body parts.

“Apiculture!” exclaimed Sherlock, looking quite pleased. “Abeilles. Bees!”

“You had beekeeping at Beauxbatons?” John asked, amazed. “That’s – well, that’s amazing. We didn’t have anything practical like that at Hogwarts.”

“What are you talking about, Watson?” George interjected. “We had Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology. And Hagrid! Talk about practical!”

“Clubs,” John said. “We had gobstones.”

“There was a Harry Potter fan club when I was there,” George insisted. “That was highly practical. I think my sister started it, in fact. Landed her a husband, didn’t it?”

“Oh – Jean – non!” Fleur stepped forward and took his hand, pulling it forward and against her breast. All other stimuli in the room disappeared as the only sensation in the universe was the rapid beating of her heart under his hand. “Mais non! Bees – zay are magical too! Wizard bees, Jean!”

“Did you hear that, John? Wizard bees!” Sherlock looked like he’d just been given a cooler full of human eyeballs and toenails. “And Madame Weasley informs me that there is a store here in Diagon Alley – Eeyops Owl Emporium. Its main trade is post owls and supplies, but the owners have a sideline in other magical creatures, like bees!”

“Wizard bees?” 

“Bien sur.” Fleur smiled. “Bill and I, ze children, we have several hives. You must come – both of you.”

“Sherlock will be teaching at Hogwarts this fall.” 

Wait? Why was John suddenly volunteering this information? Sherlock stared at him, then at Fleur, as Fleur erupted in applause.

“Oh! C’est merveilleux! Mes enfants – Sherlock – you will be my childrens’ teacher!” She threw her arms around Sherlock again. John growled and George pulled him back a few steps. “You must - _must_ – come to dinner soon. Ze children can meet you before ze term begins, and you and your cher ami can explore ze hives.”

“Cher ami?” John narrowed his gaze.

“You, you idiot,” Sherlock said. But he said it so jovially that John smiled and reached out to him. Sherlock took his hand and tucked it into his side. 

For the next thirty minutes, Sherlock insisted on completing his examination of nearly every item in the store while John only occasionally succumbed to the inexplicable urges to impress Fleur. He challenged George to a Wizard’s duel, bragged that he once killed a mountain troll with a toothpick, and sucked his small paunch in whenever her eyes were on him.

When they finally made their purchases – how Sherlock managed to spend forty galleons at a joke shop John didn’t know – they walked back into Diagon Alley and Sherlock took his arm and hurried him down the street. As soon as they rounded a corner, Sherlock let go of him, leaned against a storefront and burst out laughing.

“That was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time,” he exclaimed, wiping his eyes. “John – John! You were absolutely hysterical! You must have an amazingly low resistance to Veela charm.”

“What do you know about Veelas?” John asked, feeling a little humiliated, especially with Sherlock leaning against the wall, laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes.

“You told her you can bench press a hundred kilos. You told her you once saved me from a charging Erumpent. You claimed to be a world-renown Muggle surgeon who pioneered brain transplants. _Brain_ transplants, John!”

John moved into Sherlock’s personal space, oblivious of the passing shoppers who eyed them with suspicion. “Veelas, Sherlock?” he demanded.

“If you’re implying that I suddenly remember my past at Beauxbatons, you are mistaken.” Sherlock turned thoughtful for a moment. “Though Madame Weasley might certainly fill in some gaps. For the first time today, since I began to learn about the magical world I had erased, I glimpsed the possibility that there might be a bit of joy among all the angst and distress I’ve forgotten.”

“We should go see her, then,” John suggested as they went on their way down Diagon Alley toward the Leaky Cauldron and the portal back into the Muggle world. “She’s married to the oldest Weasley – Bill. He’s got an interesting story – I have an idea you’ll get on well with him.”

“Better than you will,” Sherlock said, biting his bottom lip to keep from laughing again. “I doubt he’ll appreciate you drooling all over his wife – and how old are these children? What if there’s a Veela daughter? I’m not sure you can be trusted, Dr. Watson.”

“Stop it.” John tugged at Sherlock’s hand. “I wasn’t so bad.”

“You weren’t so bad? Really? Then what, exactly, is _bad_? Trying to prove your virility by stripping off and ….”

“I didn’t …. I wouldn’t ….” John stopped, shook his head and laughed. “Alright. I admit it. I was ridiculous. I acted like an adolescent. The funny thing was that half the time I was falling over her and the other half I was raging inside with jealousy – thinking she was putting the moves on you.”

They’d reached the archway, and passed through it into the Leaky Cauldron.

“So, Veelas,” John tried again. “How did you know about them? And how did you resist her?”

“I know about them because I have read about them, of course,” Sherlock responded. “I have read every Wizarding book you have at 221B, John, and even more that Mycroft has given me. As for how I was able to resist her charms while you succumbed to them so … utterly, I can only look at the facts and make appropriate deductions.”

They were outside the Leaky now, and Sherlock held his hand out for a taxi. They’d be stopping by Baker Street next, to pick up some extra clothing before they returned to Hogwarts. Minerva was contacting Harry Potter on Sherlock’s behalf while they were out of the castle today.

There was still the matter of the deleted memories to resolve, and to resolve them, Snape wanted to speak with the country’s best Legilimens.

“So – enlighten me. What did you deduce about Fleur Weasley and her Veela charms? Why didn’t they work on you?”

“There are several possibilities – one, that in my school years, I learned to shield myself from her charms and am still doing so, subconsciously, of course. Two, that she simply did not turn those charms upon me. And finally, that her feminine wiles are not effective on someone…like myself. The first is the most likely – you succumbed before she even noticed you.”

“It was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it?” John asked with a sigh as they slid into a taxi and Sherlock gave the address.

“Horribly,” said Sherlock. 

They rode in silence for several minutes.

“So, wizarding bees?” murmured John. 

“Who knew?” said Sherlock. He looked out the window, watching the city pass by, a strange, peaceful smile on his face.

And John reached out and took his hand, and they rode silently back to Baker Street, Muggles again for just a short while.


	16. Frames of Reference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter and Severus Snape face off once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more to go!

Chapter 16

A day after their adventures at Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes, Sherlock and John were back at Hogwarts, working in Sherlock’s new classroom.

“A segment on Reality Television? You don’t know anything _about_ Reality Television!”

“But you do,” said Sherlock smugly.

The sudden and startling _crack_ that accompanied a house elf appearing on top of the teacher’s desk caused John, who was sitting atop the very same desk, to jerk backward and roll sideways onto the floor.

“Professor McGonagall says to come – please – to her office,” the elf panted. “Mr. Harry Potter sir is on his way and there is noise – so much noise!” The small creature covered its huge ears with its long fingers and promptly disappeared with another ear-splitting _crack_.

“She didn’t tell us this morning she was expecting Potter,” Sherlock complained to John as he helped him up from the floor. “She said she hadn’t heard back from him. And what’s this noise that elf was complaining about?”

John didn’t answer. He pulled Sherlock by the hand from the room, literally running down the corridor toward the Headmistress’ office. They ran into Ron at the spiral stairway. 

“Why are you still here?” Sherlock asked as they skidded to a halt. “I haven’t needed Auror assistance since Minerva agreed to take over the job of putting together the safety and security report.”

“My job was to stay here and accompany you for a week,” Ron answered. “And besides – if I’d left I’d have missed this!”

“Exactly,” said John, nearly bouncing on his toes as the stairway slowly moved upward. “I can’t believe I’m going to be there for this.”

“For me unlocking the unmarked doors in my mind palace?” Sherlock asked. “Really, John, I so realise it will be exciting but….”

“No you dingbat– for Harry Potter and Snape!” Ron interjected. 

“I don’t know what a dingbat is but it doesn’t sound complimentary,” Sherlock huffed.

“Right – Snape and Potter,” John agreed. “They’re _legend,_ Sherlock. _Legend._ ”

“I can’t believe I get to be here for this,” Ron said. “Harry and Snape!”

“You’ve said that already,” Sherlock said, sounding a bit put out. “Potter is only here so that Snape can explain his ideas about my Mind Palace and instruct him in a Legilimency technique to help me recover some lost memories and knowledge.”

“Right.” Ron grinned at Sherlock then turned his attention back to John as they approached the top. “What’s all that noise?”

“Applause,” Sherlock said. “And as there cannot possibly be dozens of people waiting for us in the office, the portraits must be pleased about something.”

“They’re not clapping for us,” Ron said, pushing open the Headmistress’ door.

The applause strengthened as the door opened, then died off immediately amid sighs of disappointment.

“Yeah, alright,” Ron announced. “So we’re not Harry Potter.”

“Where’s Snape?” Sherlock asked. He folded himself into a chair in front of the Headmistress’ desk and stared at the empty portrait frame.

“He told us to call him when Harry, and I quote, ‘got his scrawny arse in the room,’” Minerva answered, shooting the empty frame a lethal look.

Harry Potter didn’t leave the portraits hanging much longer. The office door opened only two minutes later, and Potter, wearing his crimson Auror robes, walked into the room. He acknowledged the surge of applause from the portraits with only a nod and a smile, and leaned over Minerva’s desk to take her hands in his own and kiss her cheek. He turned to Sherlock next.

“Congratulations on your new position,” he said, managing to look both pleased and amused. “Ron’s told me a bit about your adventures here.”

Sherlock shook the hand that Potter offered. “I admit I was surprised to learn that you are the best Legilismen in the country.”

“Read Hermione’s book, did you?” Harry returned with another smile. 

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. He _had_ read the book, of course. And he had read of Potter’s abysmal first attempts to learn Occlumency at Snape’s hands while still at Hogwarts.

“Motivation to learn Occlumency and Legilimency has to come from within,” Harry said. “I was doomed to fail when I was here at Hogwarts.”

“Hermione had opinions about that,” Ron said. He’d plopped down into a chair beside Sherlock. “Of course, she has opinions about everything.”

“I gathered,” Sherlock said, glancing over at John, who was leaning against the wall and looking around the office.

Potter was studying the empty portrait beside Dumbledore’s. “I – well, I can’t believe that Snape finally woke up,” he said.

Minerva rolled her eyes. “He claims to have been awake for years and only feigning sleep because he had nothing to say,” she said. “But now that he’s come out of his shell and joined forces with our new professor here, he’s been a regular social butterfly.”

“I am hardly a social butterfly.”

Severus Snape, looking as dour and severe as he had ever looked, stepped into his ornate picture frame and walked to the front of his painted room, dead center, looking out at the assembled people in the Headmistress’ office. He stood straight, with his hands clasped behind his back.

He had a particular way of owning the room that impressed Sherlock every time he and Severus faced each other.

Of course, Sherlock had that gift as well.

As did Harry Potter.

“Professor.”

Potter spoke now, from somewhere just behind Sherlock.

“Potter,” drawled Snape. And it _was_ a drawl – nasal and drawn out. “So good of you to join us. Though I remain in doubt that of all the Legilimens in Great Britain, you are the only one that this group could convince to come to Hogwarts.”

“You told Professor Holmes to find the best Legilimens in the country,” Potter stated, his voice more neutral than Snape’s tone warranted. “So here I am.”

They stared at each other, Potter standing very straight and very still. Sherlock didn’t need his brilliant deductive skills to know that Potter was much more affected than he was letting on. 

But then again, so was Snape.

Beside him, Ron Weasley was biting his lower lip, eyes on his friend. The Headmistress was also watching Harry. Snape’s portrait was behind her, beside the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, who was snoozing with one eye open, but Minerva sat at her desk facing forward, and her eyes were on Potter.

“Here you are.”

Snape spoke softly, and Potter responded with a smile that started out as tentative but spread across his face, into his eyes, softening his serious features.

And then Snape was smiling, an awkward, unpracticed smile, and Weasley was gaping at him, and the Headmistress spun around in her chair, and Sherlock, brilliant man that he was, realised this wasn’t about _him_ at all.

It was a bit awkward, because neither Potter nor Snape seemed to remember that they weren’t alone in the room. And the silence – obviously only uncomfortable to everyone else – stretched on.

Sherlock, who knew enough about the Final Battle and the events leading up to it from his immersion reading, hoped that this first meeting between the lynchpins in Dumbledore’s plan didn’t devolve into tearful apologies, or, God help them all, confessions of unrequited love. He had a Mind Palace to reorganise, so he decided to give the two war heroes five minutes of emotional eye gazing and tearful thank yous before he’d insist they get back to business.

_His_ business.

Which was why Potter was here in the first place.

They were still staring at each other.

Snape blinked first.

“I have heard, through the Hogwarts grapevine –” here he glanced sideways, scowling at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore beside him, “– that you have cursed your son with a set of appellations that will surely make him the bullying target of all of Gryffindor House.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Potter answered. He took half a step forward so that he was nearly leaning against both Sherlock and Ron. “I admit that James Sirius might be a name a few of the older professors remember, and it might certainly make them predisposed to watch him more carefully….”

“Were I a professor at Hogwarts, young James Sirius would have detention on the merit of his name alone.”

Harry smiled. “I think you’d find that James is all Weasley, sir,” he said.

“And that is meant as consolation?” Snape retorted. Oh, Sherlock just loved Snape’s snark. 

“We call him Al, you know,” Harry said after a brief staring match. 

Sherlock frowned. What happened to James?

“Except when he’s in trouble, I expect,” Snape countered. “I can hear his mother now. _Albus Severus Potter!_ ” He stopped, shuddering as well as a portrait could shudder. “Did you hear that, Potter?” More of the staring. “Did you? Albus Severus _Potter_! “

“Actually, I hear it quite often,” Harry said. “I’m not sure how much trouble Al would get up to on his own, but he’s got a brother just a bit more than a year older, and a sister two years younger, so there’s opportunity on either side for mischief.”

Sherlock remembered then that Harry Potter was only seventeen years old the last time Snape saw him. Snape had no memory of a self-assured, able-to-hold-his-own man.

Potter went on to show further evidence of his maturity.

“I want to take this opportunity to thank you,” he said. “For all you did – all through the years, from the time I was a small child. It made a difference – in the war, in my life, and ultimately in the lives of nearly everyone in the Wizarding World.”

“Potter – you’d better not try to apologise,” Snape said, though Sherlock noticed the slight blush in his painted cheeks. How did paintings blush? He made a mental note to research magical portraits during all of his free time this term. He had already calculated that his teaching responsibilities would occupy only fifteen percent of his waking time.

Potter laughed. “I’m not going to apologise for being a child, or for hating you. I was meant to.” Sherlock saw his gaze move over to Albus Dumbledore’s portrait. The two stared at each other for a long moment, then Potter looked back at Snape. There was quite a bit of looking and gazing and staring going on in this room. “And while I was wrong about you, especially about you being a coward, I did the best I could with the information given me. I’m past regrets, sir. And I’ve already spilled my heart and guts out to you at your grave back when I was eighteen, so I say we move on and get down to business.”

“Legilimency,” said Snape, rather hurriedly, as if trying to get control of the situation again. “Our new Muggle Studies professor, Professor Holmes, has perfected the art of stragetic and focused self-obliviation. He refers to it as ‘deleting’ – and has succeeded, in his years of living as a Muggle, at virtually erasing – without magic – information that he felt he no longer needed, so that other, more relevant or important information could be stored in his brain. He calls this organizational system his ‘Mind Palace.’ Are you with me so far, Potter?”

Sherlock had scooted his chair around a bit so he could turn and see Potter easily. He did so now, and found the man standing in military rest pose, hands held loosely behind his back, back straight. He was giving Snape his undivided attention.

“Actually, yes. And I’ve already done a bit of reading on his Mind Palace. Hermione sent me enough reading material from Muggle publications on Mr. Holmes to fill my spare time for the next few months.” 

“Sweet Merlin, my wife…” said Ron, shaking his head. “You should know better by now, Harry.”

“Wait.” Sherlock shot a look back at John, who was still leaning casually against the wall, engrossed in the proceedings. “Muggle Publications are writing about my _Mind Palace_?” He’d ceased reading anything published about him years ago.

John was shaking his head like the long-suffering partner he was. “I get blog enquiries about your shoe size and your favorite pizza topping, Sherlock. They want to know everything about you – your Mind Palace has been featured in entertainment, news and scientific publications. I’m relatively sure you actually allowed an interview about it.”

“I did?”

John nodded. “Two years ago – maybe three.”

“I must have deleted it.”

Ron snorted.

“Professor Holmes is interested in retrieving some lost knowledge,” said Snape, raising his voice and staring Ron down. “Though I believe the knowledge in question isn’t lost at all – he has simply made it inaccessible.” He nodded at Sherlock. “His methodology is nearly flawless – he has not only discovered a way to vastly increase the amount of information he can store and process, but can effectively erase information to make room for more.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at Ron again. “Rather like you did, Weasley. Of course, you erased seven years of Potions to accommodate the names on the current Chudley Cannons roster.”

Behind him, Sherlock heard John choke back a snort.

“Low blow,” Ron muttered. “True, perhaps. But still a low blow.”

“When you say that the information Professor Holmes deleted is inaccessible, you imply that the knowledge – the information – is still there. In his head – his memory.” Potter moved a few steps to the side, so he could look at Snape’s portrait without the obstruction of the Headmistress and her chair. “In essence – what? Misfiled in this Mind Palace?”

“Not exactly.” Snape smiled – well, the pleased smirk on his face might pass for a smile, anyway. “I cannot perform Legilimency on him, but that does not mean that I am no longer Wizarding Britain’s foremost mind-magic expert. I am convinced that information stored in the brain cannot be deliberately and permanently deleted without the intentional use of magic. Professor Holmes hasn’t isolated these memories, or filed them in an inaccessible location. They are exactly where they’ve always been, but disassociated from other memories and facts.”

Potter turned then, and gazed at Sherlock curiously for a moment. Sherlock raised an eyebrow. In one of his visits to the N.E.W.T. potion laboratory, Snape had grilled him on his process of deletion. 

_You cannot delete from the brain without magic. Surely you know this, Professor Holmes. The information is there – it must be. You have – what? Isolated it? Do you realise how monumental a discovery this is? How many people in this world would like to erase certain memories? Past loves, horrific experiences, acute embarrassment?_

“Frames of reference,” Sherlock said then, nodding at Potter. “Stripping a memory down to its bare essentials – removing….”

“Emotion.” Potter spoke slowly, definitively. He turned away from Sherlock then, and gazed again at Snape’s portrait. “If you remove emotion from memories, they’d become virtually inaccessible. Scattered scraps of parchment blowing about in the wind.”

“No frame of reference,” Snape added. “Nothing to connect one piece of data to the next.”

“He deleted the solar system.” 

John stepped forward, taking two steps away from the wall and addressing Potter. “I can buy your theory when it comes to horrible memories and trauma, but where’s the emotion in the solar system?”

Potter addressed John directly. “You might think of _feeling_ instead of emotion, if that helps. While the solar system is not something you might directly associate with emotion, it has emotional associations – the sunrise and sunset, the moon, even looking up at a starry night sky. Pieces of the solar system, components, if you will, and other celestial bodies that aren’t part of the solar system. If Sherlock has disassociated, he won’t look at a sunrise quite the way you and I might.”

Sherlock saw it in John’s eyes – the realization. He licked his lips – a gesture he frequently made when he was nervous – then nodded his head. “You’re right,” he said. He sounded sad, or affronted. _Affected_ in a way Sherlock couldn’t read.

“I fail to understand the attraction of a sunset,” Sherlock said, feeling all eyes on him. He’d seen hundreds of sunrises and sunsets, countless dark nights with the waxing or waning moon floating in the grey London sky. He would much rather stare into his microscope than stare out the window at the sky.

“What else has he deleted?” Potter asked. The Headmistress was studying Sherlock now. He didn’t like the look in her eye. It wasn’t pity – not quite – but it was something close to it.

“British royalty – though I think he didn’t do a thorough job with that one because he thinks we have a king. Marine biology – that will come back to bite him, I’m sure.” He glanced at Sherlock fondly. “That was a recent deletion – he decided that penguins were _distracting._ The food pyramid – or food wheel – or whatever they’re calling it these days.”

“I’m told I also purposefully deleted my own birthday,” Sherlock added. “I’d rather like to relearn that one – I feel I’m missing out on gifts.”

“All birthdays,” John said, raising an eyebrow. “Mine included.”

“And sports. Nearly all of them, though I decided to keep some football so that I wouldn’t look like a total arse at the pubs.”

Snape focused on Potter again. “So – memories, experiences, data, but all without a frame of reference. No emotions around the objects to give them relevance. Yet everything is present – simply inaccessible. And in this room is Wizarding Britain’s greatest Legilimens….”

“And its greatest Occlumens.” Potter nodded at Sherlock.

“Ah. You have made the leap.” Snape looked immensely pleased, but Sherlock thought it was more with himself than with Potter.

“Of course. He’s managed to Occlude even against himself. Brilliant.”

As much as Sherlock enjoyed being termed brilliant, he really wished the proceedings would move along.

“Right. So Potter is the master Legilimens and I’m the greatest Occlumens that ever existed. So how does -”

“Ahem.”

Several heads turned toward Snape’s portrait. His arms were crossed in front of himself and he looked decidedly displeased.

“Right. And I’m the greatest Occlumens _alive_ ,” Sherlock corrected. “We’ve established this now. So what’s the next step?”

“Mental rape,” Severus said in his low, silky voice.

“Severus!” exclaimed the Headmistress.

“We must call it what it is!” Snape exclaimed, pounding his fist on the painted desk in his portrait. “Potter must penetrate your mind, explore it, learn the shape and texture of this construction you call your Mind Palace. As a skilled Legilimens, he can guide you – lead you – to the hidden places inside that are currently inaccessible to you, discover the emotional context you currently lack, perhaps, even, help you to restore it.”

“Fine. Let’s begin.” Sherlock stood and faced Potter. Minerva looked gobsmacked. Ron was shaking his head back and forth slowly, a horrified look on his face. He clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near a Legilimency session of this caliber.

John took Sherlock’s arm.

“Um – not quite yet, alright?” he said. “Sherlock – this will only be successful if you can allow Harry to enter your mind and do some poking around.”

“I let you,” Sherlock said, giving John one of his rare, open smiles, the kind that didn’t stop at the mouth. The kind that crept up to the eyes as well, and relaxed his entire face.

But then he looked suspiciously at Potter. “How much poking?” 

“He’ll be gentle,” said Snape. “Won’t you, Potter? No trampling in like a wounded hippogriff, destroying everything in your path?”

Potter, however, was looking at John. “You’ve used Legilimency on him? And he was receptive?”

“Why wouldn’t I have been receptive?” Sherlock asked. “He used it during sex. Of _course_ I was receptive!

“I suggest you go ahead to the N.E.W.T. potions lab, Harry,” the Headmistress suggested abruptly, standing and walking around her desk while Ron gaped at Sherlock. She made her way to the door. “Severus has a portrait down there as well and can join you. I’m sure he’ll be back to his pleasant and agreeable self once he has a bit more privacy.” She glared at Snape, and he scowled back at her. 

“I hope you haven’t ruined his mind intruding for prurient purposes,” warned Snape as they left the room. “He may associate Legilimency with sexual stimulation now. Wouldn’t _that_ be awkward, Potter?”

John, fighting a blush, looked over at Potter. “It was obviously consensual,” he said. 

“Ignore Snape – he’s just upset that he never thought to use Legilimency that way, and now he’s definitely not getting any,” Ron said as they stepped onto the spiral stairway.

“Oh please, have some pity,” Sherlock said, looking back at them. As usual, he was ahead of the rest, most of the way down the stairway already. 

John smiled at Sherlock’s all-too-rare display of empathy. For Severus Snape. He should have known.

“Do you really think you can help him?” John asked as he walked beside Potter. “I’ve got to tell you – he’s really quite brilliant.”

“I say that about my wife, too,” Potter answered, grinning.

John did blush this time. Sherlock really did need to recognise _some_ filters or he’d be thrown out of the castle on his ear. “But he really is,” John hurried to assure him.

“So is Ginny,” Harry said, laughing. “No, really, John. I know. I understand. I read all about Sherlock – Hermione wouldn’t let it go until I’d gone through the articles she showed me. You’ve both been all over the papers – it’s just that we don’t pay as much attention to the Muggle World as we should, I suppose.” He paused a moment, thinking, then spoke again as they started down the great marble staircase. “The secret will be finding something that resonates with him emotionally, something he can use to draw out the disassociated memories – to reforge those lost connections.”

John shrugged. “He’s not exactly known for his sentiment.”

Potter laughed. “Hermione once accused Ron of having the emotional range of a teaspoon,” he said. They walked along together quietly for another minute or two. “I’m sure we can find something.”

“I – we – appreciate you coming,” John said. “Know that he does – even if he doesn’t thank you himself. Sometimes – well, sometimes he just doesn’t think about it. Social graces aren’t really up there on his priority list.”

Potter nodded. “Thank you – though honestly, I don’t think anything could have kept me from Hogwarts when I learned that Snape’s portrait had finally spoken. That man….” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

“You had his portrait commissioned,” John said. “The Headmistress told us – the Board of Governor’s refused, saying that Snape abandoned his position.”

Potter shrugged. “He was Headmaster,” he said. “He held this place together during the worst year ever – and perhaps the most important year ever. He deserved to be recognised for that, and a whole lot more.”

“I don’t know a lot about magical portraits,” John said, “but thought they had to be commissioned while the subject was still alive – how else do the memories – the personality – get transferred?”

“In the case of Headmasters, it’s provided by the magic of Hogwarts herself,” Harry answered. “And when he hung there for years, never speaking, we thought that Hogwarts didn’t recognise him as a previous Headmaster.” He shook his head, smiling fondly. “Turns out it was just the git himself, waiting for the right moment.”

“Bit of a drama queen, isn’t he?” John said, eyes on Sherlock’s back. No wonder the two got along so well.

“You should have seen him fly through the window that last night,” said Harry, shuddering.

“Right.” John didn’t comment further. He’d been part of that war. He remembered – remembered thinking the entire time that Snape was a traitor. A Death Eater. The enemy. 

Death Eaters.

He wished, suddenly, that he could, like Sherlock, delete the memories he’d suppressed for so long. Memories which were so much easier to tamp down when he was living as a Muggle. When he never – ever – heard the words _Death Eaters._

Living with Sherlock Holmes, who never – ever – asked how John’s parents had died.

_”Parents?” Sherlock asked_

_“Both dead,” John answered, not looking up from his paper._

_“Ah. Well then – shall I notify your sister if you run out in front of a cab?”_

Things were different now. 

_Life_ was different.

They’d chosen their path – a life with magic. And they’d meant to take it slowly – had taken it slowly, in fact.

Until Mycroft had asked the favour.

Until the Sorting Hat had chosen Sherlock.

And as John settled onto a stool behind one of the tall work tables, watching Harry Potter and Sherlock sitting across from each other, near the portrait of Snape at the front of the room, he took out his wand and rolled it in his hand, running his fingers over the familiar wood. 

“John – why don’t you come over here too?”

It was Harry Potter – beckoning him from the front of the room.

John approached them slowly.

“Why don’t you stand behind him, maybe a hand on his shoulder? Or hold his hand. Yeah – that’s good. He’s a bit tense already.”

Sherlock had reached back for his hand, and John took it, still holding his wand. Sherlock’s fingers closed around it too, and the joined hands rested against his hip, touching his own wand through the pocket of his trousers.

It felt comfortable. Relaxed. John draped his free hand around Sherlock’s shoulders, feeling Sherlock’s tension ebb from his body.

“Ready?” asked Potter.

Sherlock nodded. John looked up.

“ _Legilimens!_


	17. The Music of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A journey into Sherlock's Mind Palace, with John along for the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Harry Potter performs Legilimency on Sherlock, and John, wand touching Sherlock's, gets pulled into the experience. John's role in this chapter is rather like a marionette - subject to Sherlock's will until he finally finds his own voice. Sherlock and Harry Potter speak, but are not seen. The chapter is jumpy - with conversation and action controlled by Sherlock and Harry, but experienced by John. I hope it works - the challenge of portraying Sherlock's Mind Palace was indeed formidable.

_Legilimens._

And John, suddenly, found that he was no longer leaning against Sherlock, holding his hand, waiting for something to happen.

Now John stood alone on an empty stage in a cavernous theater.

 _The wands. It had to be the brother wands,_ he thought, remembering how their wands had been nearly touching when Potter had cast the spell.

“The mind is a theater,” a voice whispered into the darkness. The sound reverberated, colliding with the walls, brushing against curtains, sliding along the wooden floor. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

John turned, searching for the source of the voice, even though he knew it was Sherlock’s voice, knew that he’d somehow been pulled into the Legilimency session.

“It’s organic.”

That voice – that voice wasn’t Sherlock. It sounded more like Harry Potter.

Colored stage lights rose up around him, odd lights that reminded him of the glow of a distant fire. And he was no longer on a bare stage, but standing in the midst of what looked like the world’s largest lost and found. The fullness, the clutter, the chaos of his new surroundings filled his mind even before he looked around to take it all in. Clothing, books, empty bottles, furnishings, knick-knacks, brooms and shoes and suitcases and trunks. Mounted house elf heads, a gilded cage, a stuffed owl, some very old urns – all manner of items surrounded him, cut through with narrow, maze-like paths.

He turned – mouth falling open in awe as he absorbed it. He felt like a child in a candy store. He could easily stay here all day and into the night just _looking_ at this detritus of many years, the left-behind possessions of several generations.

“Wrong!”

Ah. Sherlock. _Clearly_ Sherlock.

The intriguing lost and found blurred, glowed back into existence again, then dissolved with a disappointing finality, and John felt his feet lift off the floor as a chair scooted in behind him. He collapsed into it, and it spun around several times, lifting into the air then settling back down with a gentle bump, as if caught in a whirling dervish that suddenly lost its fervor and melted back into the quiet earth. 

Someone was laughing amiably.

“And how is this any better?”

The voice again – Potter’s – distant, amused.

“Your version of my mind palace was a cheap and tawdry second hand store.”

“Then show me.”

John blinked.

The arms of the chair beneath his fingers felt familiar – and he stared at his hands to find that they were gripping the fabric of his very own chair. A quick glance around him confirmed that he was now, indeed, sitting in his very comfortable chair at Baker Street.

Or, better said, what Baker Street might have looked like had John Watson never moved in and forced Sherlock to do something about the infernal clutter.

The skull was on the mantel, but so was the rest of the skeleton, in bits and pieces, with the femur bones resting against the side of the hearth like pokers. Sherlock’s case notes had expanded from one wall to _all_ the walls, allowing the wallpaper to only peek out and never show its true colours. A trail of sheet music led from the bedroom to the violin. The table looked like a chemistry experiment gone horribly wrong. John peeked into a mug on the table beside his chair. Ugh. Could mould even _be_ that colour?

“I don’t believe this is it either. It’s a convenient decoy. A duck blind.”

Potter’s voice seemed to swirl around John’s head, refuting, challenging what Sherlock was showing him.

“Perhaps.” 

“Show me, then. Make me understand.” Potter’s voice was sincere. Trustworthy.

The lights flashed out, and when they rose again, John found himself, gowned and gloved, standing in the middle of an operating theater.

John held up a hand and snapped a glove. The sound was sharp and reassuring. 

“Deduction is a surgical procedure.” Sherlock’s voice seemed to come from above him now, focusing on him like a spotlight. “And my Mind Palace is not only a place, and not only a thing.”

“So not organic, then?” The ethereal voice of Harry Potter wafted overhead, echoing as it faded to stage right.

An operating table grew out of the floor then like a living thing. John could almost feel Sherlock smirking.

He stared at the table. It was empty save an Operation board game. Feeling, somehow, compelled to perform, he picked up the tweezers and removed the bread basket. Even though he was perfectly steady, the tweezers touched the metal and the patient’s nose glowed red as a buzzer sounded.

“Ahh - a system,” said Potter.

“Of connections,” said Sherlock.

“Thigh bone connected to the hip bone.” Potter sang a snippet of the silly song.

“Exactly.”

“So – a system organised by…?”

“Categories.”

“And the categories sorted by?”

Sherlock didn’t answer.

“Emotions?”

“Impossible.”

“Emotions,” Potter repeated. “It’s the only explanation.”

A sigh. Exaggerated and breathy. 

Potter laughed. “I’ve never quite met a mind like this. You’re more than you let on, Professor Holmes.”

“I seek order from chaos.”

“Right. So…?”

“Problem to solution, via data retrieval. The iceberg principle.”

“There’s much more than what appears on the surface – but you need what’s on the surface to access what lies beneath.” 

The Operation board melted into the table, the table melted into the floor, and a human skull rolled out from the wings and came to rest at John’s feet.

“Alas, poor Yorick.”

John sighed, then bent to pick up the skull. He held it, turning it in his hands, then looked up again, waiting.

Sherlock’s voice spoke authoritatively.

“From the skull I can connect to any of the other two hundred and five bones in the human body, and from the bones to the other systems.”

“So – the Mind Palace is a system. A process. Not a thing. Not a place.”

“A how, not a what or a where. The Mind Palace is, as I suggested already, a theater. A stage. A game board to put the elements into play.”

“Elements?”

221B grew around John again, and he found himself staring at the Periodic Table of Elements, pinned to the wall, crowded by other tacked up notes and photographs, underground maps, train schedules and newspaper clippings.

“Ah.” Potter chuckled. “I have some familiarity with … chemistry.”

“Associations.” Sherlock was plowing ahead, not paying the least bit of attention to Potter now. “People are difficult. _People_ don’t follow rules as closely as they should.” John thought he could feel Sherlock’s accusatory breath at his shoulder. “But if I tag them to elements, I can sort them more easily, and anticipate their reactions.”

“Mrs. Hudson?” John asked, surprised, when he heard his voice, that he actually _had_ a voice in this reality.

“Arsenic. 33. As.”

“Arsenic? For Mrs. Hudson?”

“It goes well with old lace.”

John laughed. “Lestrade, then?”

“Silver. 47. Ag.”

“Silver? Really? Kind of obvious, don’t you think?”

“Associations, John!”

“Anderson,” John challenged.

“Barium. 56. Ba.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“There’s really nothing subtle about this, is there?”

“I have quite a bit to sort through, John. I wouldn’t want to make it _too_ difficult.”

John took a step toward wall and stared at the Periodic Table.

“Donavan,” he challenged.

“Lithium. 3. Li. Lithium is corrosive and requires special handling.”

“You’re not making these up as we go, are you?” John asked, turning and looking up, but still Sherlock’s voice was lofty and disembodied.

“Ask me about Mycroft,” Sherlock said.

“Fine. Mycroft.”

“Radon. 86. Rn. A noble gas. Colourless, odorless, tasteless and radioactive. As a noble gas, it doesn’t form associations easily with other elements.”

“Is that some sort of chemistry joke?” John asked.

Potter laughed. “You haven’t done John yet.”

“John knows,” Sherlock said. The words floated in the air over his head, echoing about the room. _John knows. John knows._

John took a step closer to the table, lifted a hand and pointed.

“Oxygen. The most important component of the air you breathe.” He turned, smiling, shaking his head. “Sentiment, Sherlock.”

Sherlock laughed.

“Are we getting anywhere?” Potter asked. “Snape suspects you’ve been able to manage what you call ‘deleting’ by removing – or losing – the emotional context around these items. What, exactly, did he say?”

Sherlock, of course, remembered. “Potter must penetrate your mind, explore it, learn the shape and texture of this construction you call your Mind Palace. As a skilled Legilimens, he can guide you – lead you – to the hidden places inside that are currently inaccessible to you, discover the emotional context you currently lack, perhaps, even, help you to restore it,” he recited. “So – what have you learned so far?” Sherlock challenged him.

Fortunately, Potter proved himself up to the challenge.

“You’ve increased your brain’s already formidable capacity to store information by imposing a system of connections and associations. Everything visible on the surface – ” There was a pause, and a skull came skittering across the floor again toward John. “Everything you can readily see and access has dozens of threads connected to it – but web-like, with dozens of possible combinations and associations.”

“The skull,” John said, bending to pick it up. He tossed it into the air and caught it. “It recalls the human skeleton. The brain. Shakespeare – Hamlet – Denmark.” He laughed. “And the Jolly Roger – pirates.”

“Because there is so much below the surface, you need space – a stage, a theater – to assemble the pieces once you recall them. To try them out, move them around, then put everything back where it belongs when you’re finished. When you delete something – you really only orphan it.

“Right,” John adds. “You tugged on one of those threads, and found the solar system attached to it when what you really wanted was information on the Jupiter of Roman mythology.”

“I fail to see how the solar system and Roman mythology are connected.” Sherlock sounded a bit put out.

“Well, I must admit I don’t know a thing about Roman mythology,” says Potter, “but I think John does, so let’s just take him at his word.”

“So you cut the thread,” John said.

“And the solar system is floating around in your brain, disconnected and inaccessible.”

“It isn’t.” 

“It is,” insisted Potter. 

“None of this has a thing to do with emotion,” Sherlock cried out, triumphant. 

“The fact that you use science to sort and recall _people_ in your life tells me that you’re not using emotions as you could,” Potter explained. “With science, you achieve linear connections. But emotions are more like blankets – they can cover a collection of apparently unrelated items and connect them, evoke memories inspired by the senses.”

“An example?”

“Alright. The last spell I used on Voldemort wasn’t a killing curse. It was Expelliarmus. And to this day, casting that spell fills me with a sense of peace, and relief. And it always transports me to the Great Hall, and I see the threads of morning sun through broken stone, and the dust hanging in the air. And that’s the thing – it works the other way ‘round too. Sometimes, when I sit on my porch early in the morning, the sunlight will come in just the right way, and that carries me back to that day too. Or I’ll smell something musty, and think of the tent that we camped in that year, and I’ll feel hopeless and desperate all over again.”

“My system is much more structured.”

John thought he heard some doubt in Sherlock’s voice.

“I realise that. It’s logical. It’s allowed you to not only store – but to access and process far more data than most people could ever hope to. But you aren’t using the tools that most people use naturally – without thinking. Emotional cues to bridge the gaps.”

“Music.”

John was back in 221B again, surveying the clutter, the trail of sheet music that led from the window into the bedroom.

“Music?” Potter and Sherlock spoke together, as if surprised at John’s interruption.

“Emotional cues,” John repeated. He was kicking the balled-up sheet music back into the sitting room. “Sherlock isn’t a robot. He’s a man.”

“Why thank you, John.”

John hurled a ball of paper in the general direction of Sherlock’s voice. It disappeared into the air, then came sailing back at him, the size of a small boulder. He ducked and it flew through the wall and disappeared.

“You know what I mean, you idiot. And you also know that you don’t deal well with emotion. You try to bottle it all up inside until it spills out and you do that secret little happy dance when Lestrade calls with a ten.”

“Obviously not so secret,” said Sherlock.

“OR until you play,” continued John. He had wandered over to the violin, and he picked it up carefully now and regarded it with unveiled interest.

“You play?” Potter’s voice sounded surprised. “Let’s hear something, then!”

“I don’t….”

Someone snapped his fingers and John found himself, to his utter surprise, lifting the violin to his shoulder.

“I don’t play!” he protested even as he began to move the bow over the strings.

“That’s lovely,” Potter said, voice low and soft. “Very lovely. Whose theme, then?”

“The Woman’s.” There was a sigh in Sherlock’s voice.

And it was lovely. Sad. Forlorn. Evocative of days gone by, of paths diverging, of ships passing in the night.

But the melody changed, lighter, more playful.

“Molly.” John heard Sherlock’s smile. 

Until this moment, he’d never known that he wanted to play the violin. He could see Molly in the dancing notes, hear her in the lilting melody.

He was given only a brief rest before taking up the bow again.

Common and mundane notes that gradually picked up, erupted into a chase, exploded into a crescendo, then slowed, working themselves into a love song, quiet and melancholic, fading out into a lullabye.

“John.”

The violin melted into his shoulder, the bow into his arm. 

The song into his heart.

“I understand,” Potter whispered, and his voice echoed, and dimmed along with the light in the room.

And John found himself back in the Potions lab at Hogwarts, leaning heavily against Sherlock’s back, their hands still touching. He looked up at Potter, and Potter was smiling at him.

“Nice of you to come along for the ride,” he said.

“Didn’t mean to hitch-hike,” John said with a bemused grin. But Sherlock’s hand tightened around his, and he squeezed back.

“Well?” Snape’s voice, sharp and shrill from his small portrait, reached out to them. “Have you solved it, Potter? Reconstructed the palatial mind?”

Potter didn’t answer immediately. He stood, and stretched, then nodded to Snape.

“I didn’t need to solve it – these two have put it together for themselves. Sherlock just needs a bit of music in the Mind Palace.” He faced Sherlock. “Go up to the Astronomy Tower tonight at midnight with John. Take your violin. Have John show you the planets through one of the telescopes. Then put what you see to music. I guarantee you’ll never forget the Solar System again, and you won’t crowd out anything in your brain you feel is more important. Not when you can sing it, or put your arms around John and dance to it.”

“But….” Sherlock began, raising an eyebrow to match Snape’s.

“Just try it,” Potter said with a laugh.

And he tipped an imaginary hat to them, bowed to Snape, and left the room.


	18. Professor Sherlock Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John wouldn't miss Sherlock's first day of classes for anything.

“You look fine. No – you look good. Great, even.”

Sherlock sighed and tugged at his collar. He gave John a half-worried, half-annoyed look.

“It’s not meant to lie perfectly flat, Sherlock. Look – here.”

John adjusted the brushed velvet collar of Sherlock’s new teaching robes then smoothed his hands down over his shoulders. 

Sherlock turned again and faced the mirror in their Hogwarts quarters. 

“Spiffy,” opined the mirror. “But are you sure you want to wear the black when the green ones bring out your eyes so well?”

“No!” John said, grabbing Sherlock by the shoulder as he turned, most certainly intending to change again. “Black is perfect for the first day. Anyway, the house elves have the green ones. In case you’ve forgotten already, you spilled gravy on them at the feast last night.”

“I haven’t forgotten, and Hagrid did the spilling, not me. Dropped the entire gravy boat in my lap. Then tried to mop it up with his handkerchief. That was – disturbing.”

“He means well,” John said, grinning.

Sherlock gave John the side-eye. He peered into the mirror again and tucked a curl behind his ear, then thought better of it and pulled it out and shook his head.

“You’ve got firsties first, Sherlock. They won’t be paying the least bit of attention to your robes or your hair.”

“They’ll be bored to tears. They’ve just arrived at Hogwarts – the last thing they want to do is sit in Muggle Studies class. They’ll want to do magic, John. Brandish their wands about and hex each other.”

“Then do magic. I’m sure you can work it into your lesson plan. What are you covering with them today, anyway?”

“Electricty. After an overview of the term’s syllabus and a ‘getting to know you’ game.”

John very nearly choked on his tongue.

“A game? You’re planning a _game_?” He put his hand to Sherlock’s forehead, checking for a fever.

“Is that so hard to believe?” Sherlock retorted.

“Yes.” John laughed. “So – tell me. What kind of game?”

“Each student stands and tells me his or her name. I then impress the class by associating that name with a famous Muggle criminal or crime victim.”

John stared at Sherlock. “You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious. Association is a proven way to – ” 

“That’s not a game, Sherlock.”

“Why not? It’s fun for me.”

“How about something fun for them too? Maybe ‘Two Truths and a Tale.’”

“Boring.”

“Not boring. And you don’t even know the game. Admit it.”

“Fine. Enlighten me.” Sherlock pulled aggressively at his collar again. John batted his hands away.

“Each child stands and makes three statements. Two are true, one not. The class guesses which statement is false.” He raised his hand as Sherlock tried to interrupt. “For example – I might say ‘I served in Afghanistan, I love Brussels sprouts and I live with a crazy person.”

Sherlock stared at him, unamused. “The game is ridiculous. The class won’t need to guess – I’ll know.”

“No you won’t. You don’t know these children.”

“I’ll deduce.”

“You’ll deduce that they don’t have a brother named Reginald or that they hate Brussels sprouts?”

“Everyone hates Brussels sprouts. And no one names their children Reginald anymore.”

“Not everyone hates Brussels sprouts. I’ve personally seen Mycroft order them.”

“He doesn’t count. He’s not normal.”

John laughed. “Look – you’re going to be late if you don’t get out of here. Play the game – _my_ game. The kids will love you.” He stood in front of Sherlock and looked him over, up and down, admiring the perfectly tailored robes, then pulled him down into a kiss. “Can’t wait to hear about your first day when I get home.”

“John – wait!”

John, already pushing the door open, turned back and looked at Sherlock. 

“What the _hell_ was I thinking? I don’t know a thing about children.”

John grinned. “Don’t ever let them hear you say that,” he said. “They’ll eat you for lunch.” 

“Stay?” Sherlock asked. He took a step closer to John and reached out his hand.

John touched his fingers. “I wish I could,” he said. “You’ll be fine – really.”

He left then, giving Sherlock a final wave as he hurried into the corridor. He turned the corner and walked down a flight of stairs, then ducked into a classroom.

“I really appreciate this,” he said in a low voice to Harry Potter, who was sitting in a desk near the back of the room.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Potter said. He stood up and peeked out the door. “Did you lose him?” 

“Yes – bit hard to get away but I managed.”

Potter smiled, and with exaggerated flair, pulled a shimmery piece of fabric out of his robe pocket and shook out his famous invisibility cloak.

“Wow,” said John, touching the fabric with a good bit of awe. “Sneaking around Hogwarts – I feel like a Gryffindor again.”

“To old times,” said Potter.

Then he threw the cloak over their heads, and they disappeared from sight.

ooOoo

Professor Sherlock Holmes stood behind the teacher’s desk in his Muggle Studies classroom, surveying the room with thinly veiled horror.

Surely the assembled children couldn’t be first-years? They looked more like pre-schoolers. Barely people at all. Had children of this age and size even acquired basic language ability? Were their fine motor skills developed enough to hold a quill – much less a wand? Did they even have teeth yet at this age?

Wait.

Children.

Surely - _surely_ he hadn’t deleted relevant facts about children?

Damnit! He was going to have to spend time with these children then go back to his quarters and and compose music to associate with them.

“Professor Holmes?”

He blinked. A small girl – well, to be honest, every person in this room was exceedingly small – stood in front of his desk. She had frizzy auburn hair and round glasses and was looking up at him, clearly disapproving. 

“And you are…?” He raised an eyebrow and looked at his list, pegging her for “Hazel Pinkerton” – Ravenclaw.

“Hazel Pinkerton, Ravenclaw.” She extended a hand to him and he stared at it.

“You’re supposed to shake hands when meeting someone new. _Muggles_ do that, you know.”

Hazel Pinkerton clearly was an all-business know-it-all.

“Muggles may do that, but as we are all witches and wizards in this class, we will greet each other as witches and wizards do at Hogwarts,” he said, speaking – and thinking – quickly. The rest of the students were staring at the brazen Ravenclaw and their new professor, some of them with mouths agape.

Little Miss Pinkerton frowned.

“We didn’t learn a special greeting yet,” she said, folding her arms in front of her chest. 

_False bravado,_ thought Sherlock a bit smugly.

“But this is our first class!” said a squeaky voice from somewhere in the second or third row.

“Exactly!” exclaimed Sherlock. “We will learn the greeting as soon as I call roll.”

“Is there a bell?”

Another child was at his desk now. Clearly Scottish – Ullapool, if he wasn’t mistaken. He scanned his class roll again. Morogh Maccruim. 

No, not mistaken.

“Well, is there, Professor? Do bells ring at Hogwarts?”

Sherlock had absolutely no idea.

The little boy was bouncing on his heels and holding on to the front of the desk with grubby little hands.

“Sometimes,” Sherlock said, hoping he sounded confident. 

It was a good answer, really. Obviously bells didn’t ring all the time. The noise from their constant peal would be annoying and distracting. But surely there were bells here. He made a note to bring in a hand bell just in case.

Fortunately, at that exact moment, a bell rang. It was nothing like any school bell he had any recollection of ever having heard. It was soft, lilting almost, and seemed to emanate from the air itself.

The children, including Hazel and Morogh, scrambled for their seats, though Hazel scrambled in a dignified manner. Sherlock pulled out his wand and shot a quick _Scourgify_ at the butter and jam stains left on his desk from Morogh’s hands.

“Good morning,” he said, clearing his throat and projecting his voice so that it boomed around the room.

Several of the children cringed. One or two covered their ears.

He lowered his voice.

“My name is Professor Sherlock Holmes and this is Muggle Stu….”

“I knew it! I told you! I told you ALL!”

“I said it too! I said it too!”

“I saw him on the telly. And once at Tesco!”

“My mum said he had to be a wizard. She got into an awful row with my dad over it all.”

“Are we going to learn crimes?” 

A boy was standing on his desk chair now, hand in the air, jumping up and down. “Are you going to teach us now to look for clues? Are you?”

“Is Doctor Watson coming? Can you bring him please? My mum’s quite smitten with him. She’d like a photo, please.”

“Oh! My grandmother reads his blog!”

Sherlock may not have known much about children, but he certainly understood how to command the attention of a roomful of people.

And what were children but miniature people?

“Quiet!” 

He hopped up onto the teacher’s desk and surveyed the class. The students went silent.

“As I have already informed you, I am Professor Sherlock Holmes, your Muggle Studies teacher for this term. Some of you seem to have recognised me – before coming to Hogwarts to be your professor, I lived in London where I worked as a consulting detective.”

“The world’s _only_ consulting detective,” said a red-headed girl to her seatmate in an exaggerated stage whisper.

“As you are all bound by the Statute of Secrecy, you will, of course, not reveal to anyone that I am, indeed, a wizard.”

“So you were cheating? You used _magic_ to solve crimes?”

“No – of course not! I would never – never –”

“But….!”

“It’s complicated!” Sherlock said, very loudly. “And it’s time for a game!”

“What kind of game?” asked a voice from a back. Sherlock looked back at a pudgy boy with a flat-top haircut. He looked like he didn’t much enjoy games. He looked like he’d rather sit in detention than play games, or possibly visit the dentist for a root canal without anesthesia.

“You will each stand up, one at a time. You will tell me three things about yourself. I will then deduce who you are and equate each of you with either a criminal or a victim from a case I’ve worked, or a famous case in Muggle history, based on what I deduce about you.”

“That’s not really a game,” said Hazel. Hazel, apparently, was a person of strong opinions, rather like his mother. “And I’m not sure I’d like to be a criminal _or_ a victim. Are you sure this game is appropriate for children?”

“Can we play _Two Truths and a Tale_ instead?”

That voice came from the back of the room. Sherlock looked up, narrowing his eyes.

The children obviously liked that suggestion. They seemed to latch onto the idea. “Two truths and a tale. Two truths and a tale,” they chanted.

“Boring,” Sherlock said, jumping down from the table. “But yes – fine. Two Truths and a Tale it is.” He looked down at his list. “Oscar Heimos – you will be first.” 

“Wait – Professor Holmes! What about the Hogwarts greeting you’re supposed to teach us?”

Sherlock stared at the child who had asked the question. She looked concerned. 

“Aren’t you supposed to teach it to us?” asked the child directly behind her. “This is our first class ever!”

“Right.” Sherlock was nothing if not quick on his feet. “Thank you for that reminder.” He nodded at the child. “Everyone stand.”

Chairs cooted backward and the students got into position. He looked down at them, waiting patiently. They really were quite small. He imagined they required almost nothing to survive – a wedge of cheese, a few peas, perhaps a sip or two of water.

“When a wizard or witch is introduced, at Hogwarts, to another wizard or witch whom they have never before met, they will assume this position.”

Here, he demonstrated, grasping his hands together in front of his chest and standing up straight as if about to launch into an aria.

The children looked at each other, but most of them assumed the position despite it seeming quite ridiculous. Sherlock glared at the rest until they got into position.

“Now, turn to face your desk partner and bow slightly – from the waist – until your heads touch. Yes – exactly! That’s it!”

“Are you sure this is right?” asked Hazel. “It seems rather ludicrous when we _could_ just shake hands.”

“Hands are unsanitary,” Sherlock declared, glancing at Morogh. “They spread disease.” 

“Aren’t we going to play the game?” whined someone from the back of the room. Sherlock glanced up again. He _still_ couldn’t place the voice.

But nevertheless, the game commenced. Oscar was called upon again to inaugurate the activity, and, obviously familiar with the game already, he quickly stood and stated. 

“My mum is a Muggle. I have three sisters. My cat’s name is Morgana.”

“Dog,” said Sherlock. “You don’t have a cat.”

Oscar’s face fell. He sat back down glumly. 

“Willa Nunnley,” Sherlock said, reading a name randomly from the roll.

A blonde girl with braids wrapped around her head stood. She worried her bottom lip as she considered, then finally spoke. 

“I know how to ride a bicycle. My grandmother raises Crups and last summer I jumped out of an aeroplane.”

“You’ve never ridden a bicycle,” Sherlock said while the rest of the class was muttering something about aeroplanes.

Willa sunk back into her chair looking chagrinned.

“Tomas Petrillo.”

The boy stood. This one clearly had an attitude. He looked around to be sure everyone was paying attention to him before he began.

“My father works for Gringotts. My mum plays professional Quidditch. We live in Edinburgh.”

“Clearly, you do not live in Edinburgh,” Sherlock stated, rolling his eyes. “However, your father does not work for Gringott’s either.”

Petrillo’s mouth dropped open.

“You know, this isn’t really fun for us,” piped up a small voice. “I thought this was a game. Do only you get to play?”

“Everyone gets to play!” exclaimed Sherlock. He beamed at the children, then checked his roll again. “Orville Watson.” His eyes quickly travelled the room, focusing on the dark-haired boy who reluctantly stood. “Watson. Watson.” Sherlock paced forward, studying the boy intently. “Common enough name, I’m sure. Still…we shall have to get to know each other better.” 

Watson sat.

“The game, Watson! The game is on!”

Watson hopped to his feet again. “Um – my wand is made of hawthorn. I like football. I’m Muggle-born.”

“Your wand isn’t made of hawthorn,” said Sherlock, smiling at the boy fondly.

“How did you know?” asked the boy, obviously impressed.

“Elementary, Watson!” exclaimed Sherlock. “Process of elimination. What Muggle-born boy _doesn’t_ like football?”

“This really isn’t all that fun,” complained a girl who hadn’t yet spoken. 

Sherlock glared at her. “ _I’m_ having fun.”

In the next forty-five minutes, Sherlock passed out the syllabus, discussed his class objectives and expectations, then launched – with gusto –the first lesson of his teaching career.

ooOoo

“You’d think a discussion of electricity with eleven-year olds would focus on something other than electrocution,” whispered Potter.

John, leaning comfortably beside Harry Potter against the rear wall of Sherlock’s Muggle Studies classroom, covered by Potter’s invisibility cloak, choked back a laugh. At the front of the class, Sherlock, holding up what looked like a Barbie doll with its hair teased straight up like some sort of bride of Frankenstein, jerked his head around and stared at the wall behind them. 

John and Harry froze, holding their breath. Sherlock stared in their direction as he went on with his lesson, brandishing the mock-electrocuted doll in one hand like a weapon.

“Seen enough?” Potter whispered.

“Never,” answered John. 

But he let Harry Potter pull him out of the room, and he walked down to the gates of Hogwarts on a sunny day on the second of September, thinking that maybe – just maybe – he’d put in for a short sabbatical once he got in to work this morning.

He just couldn’t imagine Sherlock having so much fun at Hogwarts without him.

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends Knight Magic: The Hogwarts Project. I'm considering another story in the arc, covering Sherlock's term at Hogwarts. But I've other projects to finish first.
> 
> Thanks so much for staying with this one until the end.


End file.
